This morning my husband announced he was teetering on the edge of being under 10 stone. My husband is 2 inches taller than me, and according to his announcement, 5.2 lbs lighter than me! Now, I am happy for him, of course. He is also trying to reach his health goals, but why oh why has he done it so much faster than me. We eat pretty much the same thing - he probably eats more. He does normally do more exercise than me, but recently that hasn't been the case. I notice the same trend among friends, where the females were complaining that the men seems to be more successful at losing weight.
I made some assumptions as to why this was - "women naturally store fat", "its easier to lose weight when you are heavier". But I recently learnt how damaging it is to think you know without being sure. You can miss great opportunities if you assume you know something but you actually don't. I also wondered if I could learn from what made it "easier" men.
My research has found a general consensus that in the main, men do lose weight faster than women initially - although experiments have shown that over time this evens out. So why do men lose more weight initially? This is related to their hormones - apparently our estrogen is a contributor to women naturally having a higher percentage of body fat.
There is also a suggestion that men generally have a larger surface area and therefore lose more body heat. If the body has to work harder to regulate the body temperature, then it burns more energy.
Finally, one of the key reasons I discovered is that men tend to have a greater muscle mass and muscle tissue is more active and requires more calories to maintain. Even at rest muscles use energy.
Now this is something I can do do something about! I don't want to be skinny as such I want to be strong and lean. So building some muscle mass is something I am keen to do. My personal preference for my body would be that I have muscle definition and look strong. There is a lot of evidence out there that women can be strong and muscular and still be very "feminine". I feel like I should have a better word here is these times of equality but feminine is the right word for me.
So how do I go about building muscle mass? Weights. I need to incorporate more weights into my exercise routines and increase the weights I use. There is a process called hypertrophy, where micro-tears are caused in the muscle as a result of weight lifting. With appropriate rest the muscles will heal bigger and stronger than before. There is a recommendation that if you are trying to bulk up you should avoid cardio. However, while I want to build muscle mass, I want to be lean and I don't want building muscles so I think incorporating cardio into my exercise plan would be beneficial. There are some sites that recommend HIIT as a cardio option, and I do enjoy a HIIT workout, but I also enjoy a longer bike session - on the Turbo binging on Netflix!
I have read some articles that suggest mixing the bulking technique and cardio can confuse your muscles. But at this stage in the game for me I think that both will be beneficial and I will have to play around with my routine through trial and error to get a balance that is right for me.
How do you balance weights and cardio?
