Off the top of my head I can think of a good half dozen reasons to get into weight training - it preserves lean muscle during weight loss, improves physical appearance, increases overall fitness, prevents loss of bone density, provides extra calorie expenditure ....and there's another half dozen benefits that I didn't mention. But here's one of the best......regular participation in weight training
may significantly improve the odds of preventing rebound weight gain.
Who says so? 1) The National Weight Control Registry, 2) an independent 2006 study "
Dietary and physical activity behaviors among adults successful at weight loss maintenance" reported in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity....and 3) well, me
.
1. National Weight Control Registry: 20% of NWCR members list weight training as part of their regular exercise activities.
2.
Dietary and physical activity behaviors among adults successful at weight loss maintenance: The study classified participants who had succeeded in maintaining the weight loss as "successful losers" and those who had regained weight as "unsuccessful losers."
Quote: "There were a significantly higher proportion of successful losers who reported lifting weights (19.0%) versus unsuccessful (10.9%). "
and "In our study, weight lifting was almost twice as common among successful weight losers, and we also found that men were more likely than women to be successful at losing weight. One might conclude that a greater predilection for weight lifting was part of the reason for the men's greater success in losing weight, or perhaps, weight lifting was for many participants a way of training for specific sports and thus, possibly a marker for a physically active lifestyle."
3. Me. Okay, obviously this part is just based purely on personal observation and opinion...I think one of the reasons weight training can contribute to continued weight maintenance isn't so much the specific exercise itself, but a kind of side-effect..... one of the by-products of lifting seems to be a (sometimes hyper) focus on nutrition ...probably more than half the conversations I have with the guys in my gym center around the details who's eating/drinking exactly what, when and why - and some of these guys have it down to a science. It's just a totally different mindset from someone slogging away for an hour on the stairstepper (and hating life in the process) to burn off last nights lasagna.
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