Efficient Weight Loss by Chris Davis

In the midst of the holiday season, it is really easy to start adding on a few inches around the waist without ever realizing it with feast after feast. Healthful eating goes to the wayside as pies and eggnog seduce us. Then as we are carrying the Christmas tree to the curb and we accidentally trip over our gut, we begin to panic and begin frantically looking for the miracle drug/food/diet to deflate our spare tire. Why not start countering that weight gain now? It seems impossible to burn as many calories as we need to, especially with the hustle and bustle that goes hand in hand with this time of year. This simple answer to this dilemma is resistance training.

When people think of exercise, the first thing that comes to mind is cardio. My first years of being in a gym were formed by a man my friends and I affectionately called “backwards elliptical man”(or “BEM” for short). This guy came in around 3 o’clock every day, dressed in several layers of sweats and took his Reader’s Digest and stepped onto “his” elliptical. This guy would get after it, seriously. There would be a small river of sweat flowing from his machine as he pedaled backwards for what seemed like days. I would do my sprints next to him on a treadmill, always encouraged by his tenacity on the elliptical and thinking if I really wanted to get in shape, I was going to have to devout hours of my time to the treadmill every day.

One morning, during a week off from school, I decided to be adventurous and head to the gym at 6am. Upon sitting on a bench and surveying the early birds, one person caught my eye in particular, it was “BEM“. This time however, something was different about “BEM“. He was still sweating profusely, but this time he was doing curls, had a tank top on and looked like a Spartan from 300. I was perplexed and had to ask him bashfully, “I thought you only did cardio?” He laughed and said, “That stuff wouldn’t get me anywhere if I didn’t do the weights to go along with it.”

The bike, the treadmill, the elliptical, the stairmaster, all of these things are great tools for helping you stay in good health and lose weight. These things alone rarely get you where you want to be before you give up. Without weight training included in your weekly exercise program, cardio will sometimes seem ineffective, just because it doesn’t show results quickly. During weight training, you not only burn tons of calories, but you are also replacing your fat weight with muscle weight. This lean muscle mass not only helps increase aesthetics and athletic performance, but it also allows you to burn more calories in every day life. The fact that you are training your muscles to burn calories for you is a great thing!

And for all the ladies, don’t think that just because you are adding lean muscle mass that you are going to “bulk up.” The really great thing about weight training is that it can be tailored to any need and goal. Women’s bodies do not naturally have the hormones that promote them to bulk up from lifting weights. So combined with a natural predisposition and the expertise of your trainer, you can get the same calorie burning benefits without deepening your voice and adding 10 inches to your biceps.

And so, in a “Real Men of Genius” fashion, we salute you, Mr. Backwards Elliptical Man, for your superior understanding of the most efficient way to burn off that extra serving of turkey, and helping us realize the importance of weightlifting in every person’s weight loss routine!