Exercise To Lose Belly Fat » Lose Fat Maintain Muscle
Wanting to Lose Fat? Cardio is Not the Best Answer
A lot of people think that the best way to lose weight is through doing lots of cardio. Sure, cardio is great for your body and can help you to lose some weight, however, to really lose fat it is important to build some muscle as well. See, muscle actually helps your body to lose fat more effectively and can give you the fat loss results that you want more quickly than if you are just doing cardio. Let's take a quick look at how muscle helps you to lose fat.
To understand how muscle can help you to lose fat you first need to understand how both muscle and fat work in your body. When you have lean muscle your body has to use energy to maintain it. Your body provides energy to your muscles by burning off calories. The more muscle you have in your body the more calories your body will need to maintain it.
Fat, on the other hand, just sits there and doesn't require any energy from your body. That means that if you have more fat than muscle in your body you will burn fewer calories than if you have more muscle than fat. We're not just talking about calories that are burned while you are working out, either. The more muscle you have in your body the more calories you will burn while you are just sitting around doing nothing - or even while you are sleeping.
When you just do cardio you burn a lot of calories during your workout, which is great. However, by adding strength training along with your cardio throughout the week you will actually see faster fat loss results. The strength training will help your body to build more muscle and will cause your body to burn more calories while you are not working out. Then, you'll burn even more calories above and beyond the resting calories when you do your cardio workout. That means that your body turns into a lean calorie burning machine and fat loss becomes easy.
A lot of women are afraid that if they begin strength training they are going to bulk up. Actually, this is not true. What will happen instead is that your body will become lean and toned and the fat will melt away as you start adding more muscle to your frame.
Be sure not to overdo it with strength training since you don't have to workout very often to see great fat loss results. Try doing strength training several times a week. Add some cardio whenever possible for the ultimate calorie burning experience. The more calories you burn the more weight you will lose and the quicker you will get the body you want.
For the fastest fat loss results it is also very important to add a diet geared specifically toward fat loss. The majority of popular diets do not provide your body with enough energy to feed your muscle while still losing the fat. If you would like to drop fat quickly I would recommend checking out the top fat burning diets to maximize your efforts and find your way to the sleek, sexy body you want. You can learn more at http://fatloss.s1so.com
Source: www.ezinearticles.com