Lift Weights for Weight Loss

Posted: Jun 26 in Weight Loss Blog by Staff

If you’re focused on slimming down after weight loss surgery, there are few things more beneficial to reaching your goals than regular exercise. In addition to helping you keep off the pounds you lose, a consistent exercise plan can help you boost your metabolism, lower your blood pressure, tone your muscles, increase your energy levels and make you look and feel better.

But for many patients of weight loss surgery, it can be difficult to decide what exercise plan will be the most beneficial. Though your weight loss surgeon may offer advice for developing an exercise program, you may also read and hear many different claims about which kinds of exercise are best for losing weight, making it difficult to weigh your options.

Many people focus on aerobic exercise in their weight loss exercise plans, pouring all their efforts into cardio workouts like walking, jogging, swimming and exercise bikes. Though these all constitute excellent workouts after weight loss surgery, strength training is often excluded from these workout programs as a lot of people fear that lifting weights will have no benefit for weight loss.

However, this is a wide misconception. Strength training can actually be great for your weight loss goals, especially when combined with aerobic exercise. Here’s how:

Burn Calories outside the Gym

With traditional cardio workouts, you burn calories during exercise but quickly return to your normal metabolic rate once the activity has ended. Strength training has an entirely different effect. Your muscles require constant fuel, meaning that building muscle will allow you to burn more calories even when sitting still. Though aerobic activities are seen as the best ways to quickly burn off body fat, strength training provides you with a base of lean muscle that will improve your overall metabolism and allow you to burn more calories in each and every moment.

Tone Your Body

It’s a common misconception among women that lifting weights will add bulk, which contributes to strength training’s reputation as a poor activity for weight loss. However, women do not tend to develop big, bulky muscles as men do—rather, they develop long and lean muscles that contribute to the toned and tightened look that many women desire. Ridding yourself of excess body fat will get rid of bulk, but lifting weights to build lean muscle will help you develop a healthy, naturally and strong look as that bulk drops off.

Combine Workouts for Best Results

Rather than focusing on one or the other, the best approach is to combine strength training and cardio. Instead of just doing your daily aerobic activity, try also lifting weights a few times a week. Adding strength training to your exercise routine will help you burn body fat and calories faster, improve your athleticism and benefit your physique and health without causing you to bulk up. Pay no mind to those who naysay strength training for weight loss—it can have huge advantages.

You should start slow with any workout after weight loss surgery, but most patients can begin incorporating strength training within one to six months after their operation. Once Dr. Bass has cleared you for physical activity, try using resistance exercise equipment like dumbbells, weight bands or gym machines to supplement the aerobic workout you get from walking, swimming and biking.