How to Lose Weight: #7: Build Muscle

Weight-lifting and muscle building should be a part of any serious weight loss or health program. Why? Not only does weight-lifting make you look trim and fit, but it increases your metabolism every minute of the day. This is because the bigger your muscles are, the more energy it takes to feed them, even when you are not using them. One study showed that every pound of muscle you gain increases your basal metabolic rate by 37.5 calories. Since in that same study participants gained an average of 3 pounds of muscle in six weeks, this means by the study's end, they burned 112.5 calories more per day than when they began, just by simply existing. All things equal, this extra metabolic boost theoretically would result in almost 12 pounds of extra fat lost in a year.

I have lifted weights since I was in high school. Back then, I lifted in a dungeon of a weight room with old, torn-up, carpeting and rusty free weights, with heavy metal music frequently blaring. However, occasionally they would put oldies on, and I recall hearing Elvis Presley's "In the Ghetto" for the first time down there. I remember coaches giving shaky advice, insisting that we only do incline bench press, because "you aren't lying on your back when you block someone in football." Last I checked, we weren't lying at an incline when we blocked someone either, something one of the younger coaches often pointed out. Oh well. I also remember guys who would work their biceps and nothing else. I regularly skipped squats because I hated them, and I even skipped whole days of lifting because hanging out with girls struck me as more fun. One time I was riding in the back of a friend's pick-up truck with my brother and some girls, and our football coach saw us, even though we were supposed to have just finished up lifting. Ahh memories!