You want to lose weight or change your overall body composition, the ratio of fat versus lean mass in your body. You want to build more muscle, but you aren’t sure where you should even start.
Metabolism linked with active skeletal muscle
There is a common misconception that if you want to lose fat, you should just focus on cardio. Start running or walk for hours on end. Many, especially women, believe that if they lift weights they will morph into a body building professional overnight. They see building muscle as something that only athletes should do, certainly not anyone who is looking to just “lose weight and get healthy”.
Did you know that improving your lean muscle mass through simple weight training could be the one thing separating you from reaching your goals?
Muscle is vital to body composition and improving your weight or body composition numbers. Essentially, you could maintain the same weight, increase muscle mass and lose body fat and be in much better physical health than if you just focus on losing weight.
Simply put, your lean mass is made up of muscle, organ tissue, bones, and anything else in your system that is not fat. Fat has a very important purpose in the human body and maintaining a percentage, whether you are male or female, is vital for proper function. However, as Americans, we have a higher body fat percentage rate than ever before. This needs to be addressed and the best place to start is through adding muscle.
Adding a simple strength training program just 2 – 3 days per week can have a drastic effect on your ability to reach your short-term goals. Lean muscle will impact your goals directly through the impact it has on your metabolism.
3 Ways Increasing Your Lean Muscle Mass Will Impact Your Metabolism
1. Store Energy
Muscle tissue has a higher capacity for energy storage because they need to have glycogen and other energy sources readily available for use. The more lean muscle you have, the more efficient you will be during activity, as the energy source will be readily available.
2. Burn More Energy
This is especially important for those looking to lose weight or change overall body composition. By improving your lean muscle mass, you will be able to burn energy more efficiently through activities and increase your Resting Metabolic Rate. Over time, this will make your goals more attainable.
Your metabolism is the process your body goes through to burn and utilize energy for all activities. Whether it be digestion, running a race or thinking, your body utilizes energy to perform all activities. Muscle can burn 20% more energy than fat, which means you are more efficient when you have more lean muscle.
3. Ability to Increase Energy
This is particularly important when you are participating in your favorite activities and sports. Imagine how much better you would feel if you could play an hour of basketball and be able to run the court in the last five minutes of your game as you could in the first five minutes. When you have more lean muscle, you increase your ability to store sugar in your muscle as glucose. This makes it more available and easier for your body to access.
That’s huge right? What about not feeling as fatigued after going for a run with friends or playing ice hockey each week. Improving lean muscle mass and teaching your body how to properly conserve and use energy will help you be more efficient, and help you enjoy the activities you love most.
Improve your Lean Muscle Mass and Metabolism Today!
You can start today by adding simple strength exercises to your regular routine. Starting simple and building a strong foundation is vital for success.
To learn more about how you can start improving your lean muscle mass today, check out this video on YouTube [LINK].
We are always here to help you find success. Contact us with any questions you have or if you would like to set up a free consultation with one of our MindMuscleMemory Certified trainers.