JJ Virgin debunks the myth that you should lose weight before lifting. Building muscle increases your resting metabolic rate and insulin sensitivity, making fat loss easier. Start resistance training now, not after cardio.
The big myth, don't lift weights till you lose the weight. And I remember the first time I heard it when I was in graduate school. In fact, what our professors were teaching us to do was do not have your clients do weight training, have them only do cardio till they lose the weight. This is the most counterproductive advice that I can think of because you want to have that muscle. Muscle, when you look at your overall metabolism, we have your resting metabolic rate and then we have your thermic effect of food and then we have activity. The only way that you can really change your resting metabolic rate is by adding more muscle. It's also gonna improve your insulin sensitivity and it's gonna give sugar a safe place to go. And if you've got good fasting insulin, it's gonna make it easier for your body to burn stored body fat. When you do a big resistance training routine, your body has to work a lot harder afterwards to recover. It's more metabolically costly. Now, I'm not saying don't do the cardio, but I'm saying don't wait to do the resistance training. Start it now.
