On Healthy Living

Many times when people decide to lose weight, they worry about strength training. They avoid the weights like the plague and stick to the treadmills and the spin bikes.  The goal is to burn a lot of calories and drop the weight.  However, you can sculpt your body and do weight lifting without building bulky muscles.  Did you know that it takes more calories to just simply live and breathe if you build up your muscles?  Muscles take more energy to maintain and thus burn more calories per day.

However, not everyone wants to look like a body builder.  The key is to every time you work out to start out your routine with a short cardiovascular workout.  This will kick up your metabolism while you lift weights.  Next, look at the worst areas of your body that you want to target first.  For example, if you have a pot belly, you could work on the abdominal area first.  Using light weights, work several sets to build the muscles in that area.  The lighter weights will not create bulky muscle mass.  Using more repetitions is the key once you start targeting areas for toning.   You will look better.  And you will burn more calories each day just by breathing and walking around.

Joyce Priddy wrote this on February 27th, 2008 and filed it under Healthy Living, Diet & Exercise, Weight Loss |