Try Weight Training!
Research has shown that the number one hassle affecting the level of stress of middle-aged people is a problem with their weight! The constant battle of the bulge reaches its peak in middle-age mainly because of reduced muscle mass. We naturally begin to lose muscle at age twenty at the rate of one-half pound per year. By age fifty, the loss of fifteen to twenty pounds of muscle slows down our metabolic rate (rate at which the body burns energy). So, if our body's energy-burning capacity is severely impaired and we keep eating as we did at age twenty, the poor body can only expand! And, if you are female, the problem is compounded by the fact that, genetically, females are born with less muscle mass than males.
If you are one of these people, how would you like to begin the journey of solving that problem for the rest of your life - so that you can be free to use that time and energy for more creative and positive endeavors?
Until fourteen years ago, my own weight fluctuated between 120 and 127 pounds. Seven pounds may not seem like a lot, except that at five feet, two inches, that much difference in weight can mean a full dress size. I could gain five pounds after a typical Saturday night meal in a perfectly lovely New Orleans restaurant. Then I would starve myself for the next three to four days to lose the extra weight, only to gain it back the following weekend!Do you know how frustrating it is to see your bulging abdomen the next morning? To have to walk around with your zipper only half-zipped because your waist is two inches thicker?
Well, my weight finally began to stabilized itself the minute I started to lift weights due to my increased muscle mass.
At the end of my first year of regular weight training (three times per week), I lost ten pounds of FAT. Besides weight training, I was also reducing my dietary fat intake and drinking eight glasses of water daily.
Today, my body fat is seventeen per cent. I burn approximately 3,000 to 4,000 calories per day!
And that is the KEY to permanent weight loss and maintenance!
One pound of muscle burns fifty calories per day to sustain itself. Therefore, the more muscle mass you have, the more energy (calories) you burn! Only the muscle in your body burns energy - FAT is inert!
Dr. William Evans, author of Biomarkers: The 10 Keys to Prolonging Vitality says, "In the next five years, there will be more and more evidence that weight lifting may be a better way to lose weight than aerobic exercise."
But the wonderful thing about weight training is that besides being the key to controlling our weight, it has numerous other benefits:
- Develops muscular strength, and improves overall physical capacity.
- Improves skin tone.
- Increases bone density.
- Rejuvenates physical appearance, as toned muscles reduce skin sagging and wrinkling.
- Protects bones and joints as the body moves.
- Enhances athletic performance. Physical capacity is directly related to muscular conditioning.
So, as a result of weight training, I not only stabilized my weight, but also developed a shapelier body, increased my energy and strength and increased my bone mass---and all at a time in my life when many women think it's too late to change their bodies!
Weight training can do the same for you. It can free you once and for all from the daily stress of dealing with excess poundage. You have nothing to lose but fat!
NOTE: Even though men are genetically blessed with more muscle mass than women, they can also benefit from weight training because both men and women lose muscle and bone mass equally as they age.