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BY CHAD SALYER
Every year, around the holidays, a familiar scenario plays out. People who, like myself, were not blessed with a very high metabolism tend to gain a few unwanted pounds.
If you have a large extended family, again like me, you will be inundated with relatives insisting you try their delicious foods. We are surrounded by sweets and treats to tempt us and will probably wind up indulging at one family get-together after another.
The increase in food intake is only half of the problem. For most people, outdoor activity represents a large amount of the exercise they might get in a day.
Mowing the yard, gardening, walking around the neighborhood for example. All of these things are less pleasant in the late fall and winter. So, we might choose to stay in instead.
The net of these things is that tendency of our pants to get tight and our shoes hard to tie around the holidays. There is a solution though… weightlifting.
“What? Weightlifting makes you gain weight!” You might insist, and you would be right, but the weight you gain from lifting is typically muscle and not fat.
Also, weightlifting with the right rep scheme and intensity can be a super efficient calorie burner.
Finally, weightlifting puts your body into a higher calorie burning mode for days at a time which helps burn off your third helping of Aunt Sally’s pumpkin pie.
When you consistently lift weights using solid exercise choices (squat, bench, deadlift, and complimentary assistance movements), use the right intensity (go until you only have 1 or 2 reps left), and hit an appropriate volume on your workouts (Main lift for 5 sets of 10, 4 additional assistance exercises for 3 sets of 20, and an ab exercise for 2 sets of 50, for example) you will burn tons of calories in a relatively short period of time.
This will definitely make a difference when compared to just sitting around.
You may gain a bit of muscle by following a weight training program, but as long as you keep your calories the same as before you started, the net will be a lower body weight and you will look better to boot.
Another benefit of weight training is that the increased muscle mass and hormonal changes that occur will actually increase your resting metabolism.
This can give you a lasting advantage in the battle of the bulge.
So, when it is too cold to walk, you can always head to a gym and get a good weight training session in. The result will be a better you in no time.
You probably should not have that third helping of Aunt Sally’s pie, but if you do, be sure to get your workouts in to help offset those extra calories.