Putting on some muscle mass is key in order for your weight loss and fitness program to be most effective. Since it requires 40 to 50 calories each day to sustain one pound of muscle, adding several pounds of muscle mass will create a calorie deficit that can burn fat quickly.
Conversely, losing muscle tissue as part of your overall fitness program is not effective weight loss. Ideally, calorie intake is used to feed muscle. With less muscle mass, it takes less calories to maintain body weight, therefore excess calories are turned into fat.
One of the easiest ways to add muscle is to perform progressive resistance type training. Since new muscle growth requires up to 48 hours between workouts to repair and regenerate, this training only takes place 2 - 3 times per week. However, during these "breaks" between exercise, your body will use up calories and burn fat as your muscles develop.
Steady state endurance training, and variable cyclical training are two common categories of exercise that will build muscle. A three mile jog at a fixed pace would fall into steady state while changing up tempo and momentum during that jog would put it into the variable class.
Variable intensity training is a more effective weight loss means than steady endurance because it builds muscle faster, increases cardio health, and it's just not as tedious or mundane. Also, with steady state endurance training, you are more susceptible to get stuck at one level and impede your advancement.
Here are some methods to add variance to existing training:
- change up the number of reps in a set
- change up the number of sets in a workout
- change up sequences
- alternate the order of exercises
- rearrange the grouping
- substitute the type of routine or alter the number of exercises
- adjust the amount of resistance and vary the time spent under certain tensions
- modify the number and length of rest periods between sets
- try different repetition speeds and range of motion
- adjust exercise angles and positions, standing/sitting, equipment settings, inclines
- revise how frequent you train and the duration of workouts