JJ Virgin argues resistance training is essential for weight loss, not just cardio. A 2009 study found diet-only weight loss in older adults caused significant muscle loss, while adding resistance training preserved it. She recommends 8,000+ daily steps, twice-weekly high-intensity training, high protein intake, and creatine to keep muscle while losing fat.
look at resistance training as one of the key things that you can do to improve your body composition. And by the way, this didn't matter if they were, you know, how old they were, what sex they were. This is a powerful tool for everyone. And when I think about this, we all think of lifting weights to build muscle. But again, I want you to think of lifting weights as a way to also lower body fat. And again, think of muscle as your metabolic Spanx that holds everything in tighter. There's also a study in 2021. It was another systematic review that was published in Obesity Reviews that revealed that weightlifting plays a crucial role in weight loss and overall fitness. This is now updated recommendations from the European experts that highlights that while moderate aerobic exercise can help with losing body fat and visceral fat, the expected weight loss is really pretty small, maybe about 5 pounds. However, for preserving lean muscle mass during weight loss, moderate to high-intensity resistance training is essential. Get that? Essential. And resistance training improves insulin sensitivity, cardiovascular fitness, and muscle strength. So what I want you to think about doing is doing resistance training and aerobic training. And especially what I like to have people do is do their resistance training, get their steps in every day, 8,000 or more, ideally more, and add a little rucking vest to up the intensity. And then do some high-intensity interval training twice a week. When you do this and when you do that weight training, you're gonna improve your appetite control, your quality of life. Everything. So weight training for the win. Do not wait to lift the weights. Get started now. Here's another important one. All weight loss is good. I like to say that if you are losing weight but not losing your waist, you actually could make yourself worse, not better. Now, when you look at the average diet out there, a poorly designed diet, and this is whether you're using diet drugs or not, right? A poorly designed diet, it can cause anywhere from 25 to 50% muscle loss. And muscle loss gets worse as you get older. There was a 2009 clinical trial that was published in the Journal of Gerontology that concluded that weight loss in older adults often includes muscle loss, especially when they are just doing it through diet alone. And I would tell you, I'm going to be as bold as to say I don't believe anyone should ever go on a diet without including resistance training. This study was a study of individuals around 67 years old, and they had diet-only and diet-plus-exercise groups. And what they found was the diet-only and exercise groups lost similar body weight and fat, but the diet-only group also experienced significant muscle loss, 4.3%, while the exercise group preserved most of their muscle mass. They only had a 1% loss. Now, this is huge. This highlights that need for making sure that if you are ever going on a diet, you're always doing exercise. In fact, let's just say it, just always make sure that you're doing exercise, you're getting that resistance training in, because you lose 4% of your muscle mass, that's hard to get back when you are 60+. So no caloric restriction without resistance training. You couldn't lose fat and put on muscle at the same time. I think that it's only been recently that people realize this isn't the case. I know that it's not the case because early on I was having people come to me and they wanted to lose fat and put on muscle, and sure enough, we were able to do it. And there's very specific ways that you want to be— that you need to do this because this is what we call body recomping. And if you want to body recomp, lose some body fat, put on some muscle mass, you may end up weighing same, but your body will look entirely different. There's a very specific strategy that you need to do, which is make sure you're optimizing your protein intake. And this is where you might even want to go higher than 1 gram per pound of target body weight. You might even want to go up to 1.5 grams per pound of target body weight and really focusing on resistance training and high-intensity interval training. And creatine would definitely be one you want to put in here as well. Super important. There was a study in 2020. It was published in the Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise Journal and found that It's possible to lose weight and build muscle at the same time when you have resistance training combined with proper dietary intake. So they had 130 older women, which is so rare. Thank you so much for doing this on older women. And it was over 24 weeks. And those with higher protein intake experienced greater increases in skeletal muscle mass and significant reductions in fat mass compared to those with lower protein intake. All the participants engaged in whole body resistance training program. And so we know because the only difference was the diet that the higher protein consumption led to a more favorable body recomposition. So again, if you want to recomp your body, it's not just resistance training, especially if you're doing caloric restriction, make sure you're getting in that high protein. And generally we say 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of target body weight. You might even want to pump it up a little bit more than that. And this is where I also love to add in an essential amino acid supplement, like my Amino Acid Power.
