What’s the easiest way to burn more calories? Simple: put more muscle on your body. Okay, that was a trick question–adding muscle is not easy, but once you have it you burn more calories without even lifting a finger!
What Muscle Does For You
Think of your body as a camp fire. If you’re over 30 and haven’t exercised in a long time, your body has lost muscle, and your metabolism is probably very low. Your metabolism is like the left-over embers from last night’s fire. What happens when you try to feed the fire by adding more wood (food)? When your metabolism is low, it’s like putting the large logs on first, followed by the kindling, with some dry leaves or paper on top. The embers are not hot enough to ignite the large logs and crank up the fire. Eventually the embers burn out, the insects take over, and you’re left with a pile of rotten, unsightly wood (fat). At this point, the more you add, the more it piles up.
Let’s say now you start to do some low-intensity cardio like walking the dog in order to lose weight. The good news is low-intensity cardio is like throwing the leaves and paper on the fire, but the bad news is it’s like waiting too long before adding the kindling. It burns for a little while, but by the time you return to add the kindling and logs your fire has gone out already. Once again you’re left with a pile of wood. At least this is better than doing nothing since you did burn some leaves.
Next you decide to increase the intensity of your cardio by doing a program with high intensity intervals. These programs are designed to give you an “after burn” which is an increase in your metabolism for an extended period of time after you finish working out. Now you are starting to build your fire the right way, with leaves and twigs on the bottom, followed by kindling, and one or two logs on top. It ignites (yay!) and this time even the logs burn for an hour or two. The only thing wrong this time is you forget to add more wood, and after a couple of hours you come back and the fire is out. Now you either have to start all over or watch the insects rot the wood pile again.
But there is a better way. The camper next to you has invested time exercising with weights or resistance bands and has added considerable muscle to her frame. She must have started the same way as you because her fire is already burning. And it looks like the logs in her wood pile are the same type as yours. You watch for a couple of hours and notice that the fire never seems to die down, but every couple of hours she feeds the fire another log or two. Over the course of an entire day it’s amazing how much wood she burns. Her wood pile shrinks, and she never has to re-start her fire.
So what am I trying to say here? The bottom line is that muscle burns calories even when it’s not moving. More muscle on your body means more calorie burn. Think you have enough muscle already? Trust me, you don’t. So next time you go to your gym talk to one of your trainers about starting a weight routine. Or better yet, contact me and I’ll help you find one of our home-based programs that you can do by yourself or in one of my groups for a fraction of the cost.
Passive calorie burn is like passive income–it happens without ever lifting a finger. It takes hard work to get there, but once you achieve it all the hard work is worth it.
High Intensity Interval Cardio Programs
Insanity, Focus T25, TurboFire, Turbo Jam, Hip Hop Abs, Rockin’ Body, Les Mills Combat, Rev Abs
Muscle Building Programs
P90X, P90X2, Rev Abs, Body Beast, ChaLEAN Extreme, Slim in 6, 10 Minute Trainer, Power 90, Les Mills Pump
I am an Independent Team Beachbody Coach who found success using Beachbody's fitness programs and nutriton guides. I'm here to see that you have the same success I have had using Beachbody programs.
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