So why bother lifting?

As the previous poster said, there are many benefits to strength training. When you are losing weight, you lose some lean muscle mass along with the fat. Strength training helps to minimize how much lean muscle you lose. Also, when you are at rest, stronger muscles burn more calories (for recovery and such), so it actually helps you to burn more fat during the times you aren't working out. In addition, strength training is especially helpful for women in preventing or reducing the effects of osteoporosis.

I second the poster who suggested the book "New Rules of Lifting for Women"...great book with a lot of good information and an awesome workout plan. I started it this week (SO SORE the next day!) and can already tell a difference! You see changes in your body a lot faster with both strength training and cardio combined.

I am doing the New Rules workouts on M/W/F and C25K on T/Th/Sat. I didn't work out yesterday because I didn't feel well (think I'm coming down with something, or trying to), but as soon as I feel better, I'll be right back at it! Just be sure you get lots of protein if you do lifting.

If you can't build muscle in a calorie deficit if you have a significant percentage of body fat, is there any benefit to me lifting right now? Or would I be better off to focus on cardio, cardio, cardio until I get closer to goal and maintenance and THEN incorporate lifting?
Thanks for any thoughts on this!
Carol Ann

Lifting - even in a calorie deficit will do the following, and more:

It WILL condition, tighten, tone, and firm up, and strengthen muscle you DO have now. True you will not add on much "new" muscle, (as in bulking) but you can add some, often seen at the beginning, especially if you have high protein, good macro levels, some body fat stores, - and you will dramatically improve the look, feel, strength, texture of what you now have. As you get closer to your goal weight, its harder to add on "extra" muscle pounds, especially if you are going to a "low" BF percent level.

Better muscle tone helps dramatically in injury prevention, balance, coordination. And if you do get injured, healing is easier.

It will tighten you all over in a way fat loss only cannot. So you will see better inch loss, better leanness, better cut and toning effect, less jiggle. Losing fat only will NOT lessen jiggle. Losing fat AND tightening your muscle - will lessen jiggle, raise up butt, and breasts (some), make thighs and abs un-jiggley un-squishy. So you look better all over, especially unclothed.

As you lose fat, when you "see" the better conditioned muscle underneath - you"see" a more visually impacting improvement. Its easier to see results, when you push slightly on your skin, which has a spongy layer of fat, and feel concrete muscle tone under it. Or if you pull excess skin, up from your belly toward your upper torso, and SEE cut abs from muscle. So even if you are not yet at your goal, you have more visible improvement.

You will lose fat faster then cardio only. Muscle repair, conditioning and eventually building requires more calories then static fat, for your body to maintain. A pound of muscle use 15 calories more a day, just to exist then fat.

As you do increase and add on muscle, you do improve your metabolism and lean body mass. We actively lose muscle without use, especially after age 40, when you loss it much faster. If you keep working it (at any age) you keep what you have, so when you do get to the point of adding more muscle (if you choose to) its MUCH easier, as you already have some foundation to start with.

If you are not challenging your muscle to new levels, it become static, and you will lose some.

If you do not challenge muscle you have, to prove to your body you "need" it, you body uses it to cannibalize for other needs, Its unnecessary to the body, so it begins to break it down.

Muscle IS hard to "add on", so you don't want to neglect what you have, and let it wither down, thats just more you have to do later, to "Look" tight and toned. Undeveloped muscle looks flabby, and fat like.

I once had a full leg cast (floor to hip) on one leg for 4 months. I walked on it daily, with a crutch, so was using it, but not as much as normal. In three months, when cast was removed, I was horrified. My cased leg was flabby, nasty, spongy all over, I could push down and feel bone (never normal for my legs before) MUCH MUCH thinner then other leg. No fullness or firmness, looked just like fat hanging on the bone. I lost 2 inches or more on muscle fullness.

This of course is a dramatic example, but shows what "not" using a muscle, as you should can do, in a short time. I did start therapy, and eventually built that muscle tissue back to where it should be. But that was time I could have been creating, or improving current muscle - instead, I had to start from the bottom, and build it first, to a functional level, then improve from there.

And I had alot of good muscle in my legs before this happened, as I used to scuba dive 2-3 hours a day, everyday for a year. So I was starting from a good muscle foundation. It would have been worse, if I was in less athletic shape in my lower body,

I personally lose much more weight lifting heavy, and doing cardio, then strength training or cardio only. And the visual impact overall is more dramatic, so people who see me think I have lost much more weight, then I actually have. I also fit in a much smaller clothing size, when I am strength training, vs not, because I am tighter all over.

See Stacies story if you have missed it - see differences in her body from Cardio only to strength traing add on.

She did part of this transformation at a calorie deficit, though she is not at calorie surplus.

http://nerdfitness.com/blog/2011/07/21/meet-staci-your-new-powerlifting-super-hero/