FAT LOSS: A Common Misconception

WebMd Video

     So I’m browsing through webmd this past Friday afternoon to try to diagnose the knee pain I’ve been bothered by for months. My eyes turn to a video on the wedmd site discrediting lifting weights as a way to burn fat. While Anne Wilkinson, ACE certified personal trainer,  does mention that weight lifting is a worthwhile piece of the puzzle to shedding fat pounds, she makes the statement, “if you’re going to start a weight-reduction plan, you really have to focus heavy on cardio…in weight lifting, you are not going to burn fat as a primary fuel source.”

    For the most part, she is correct. Carbohydrates are the primary fuel source for ANY exercise in the beginning. It is not until exercise continues for sometime that the body turns to fat for fuel. I don’t think Anne Wilkinson is an idiot, but its clear she is mistaken, just as many personal trainers and fitness gurus are. This type of thinking has led many to use “cardio” and “aerobics” interchangeably. These two words, however, are not two different titles that have the same definition.

      Let’s first look at what cardio is. “Cardio is the medical term for heart. Cardio exercise is any type of exercise that gets your heart moving at a rapid pace” (uk.answers.yahoo.com). “Aerobic exercise” literally means exercise with the presence of oxygen.  After someone exercises for about 3 minutes without stopping, the body transitions from the anaerobic energy system to the aerobic energy system. While aerobic exercise is certainly considered cardiovascular, this does not mean that weight lifting, sprinting, and other types of exercises not primarily engaging the aerobic energy system cannot be considered cardiovascular. If the session lasts long enough, even intense weight lifting can have a cardiovascular effect on the body.

     When the heart is engaged for an extended period of time,  cardiovascular exercise is taking place. This can be, and often is, done with weight lifting. And as Scottish-turned SoCal strength coach and fitness professional Alwyn Cosgrove points out, fat loss is much more determined by increasing the body’s resting metabolic rate than anything else. And what is a great way to accomplish this, you ask? That’s right: intense weight lifting.

      I blogged about this last year, but as a reminder, Cosgrove takes his clients who need to lose fat and has them do an intense, compound upper body lift for 60 seconds, immediately followed by an intense, compound lower body lift for 60 seconds. Then, 60 seconds of rest takes place before repeating this cycle 2-3 more times, with 3-4 more stations set up in this same pattern. As Cosgrove will tell you, the biggest reason why this type of training is so effective for fat loss is that the body will continue to burn fat long after one leaves the weight room.

      Something that so many personal trainers and fitness gurus mess up is thinking that running, biking, or swimming is the absolute best way to lose weight–because that is what we always think of as “cardio.”  And cardio is the only way to lose weight, if we refer to cardio with the literal definition in mind. When we disturbe the body’s resting metabolic rate (which is done cardiovascularly), we put ourselves in a great position to burn fat. When we disturb the resting metabolic rate so severly that our bodies’ continue burning fat long after we’ve left the gym, then we’re really on to something.

      So to say what  Wilkinson should have said on her video that made it to wedmd.com, if you want to burn fat most effectively and efficiently, you have got to disturb your body’s resting metabolic rate. Cardio exercise, which as we all now know is any workload that engages the heart at a rapid pace for an extended period of time, is how you do that. Pumping iron is an outlet quite capable of putting such a workload on the heart. So be careful when thinking that weight lifting is not productive for fat loss. You may just be missing the key ingredient to success.