The Importance of Weight Training During a Weight Loss Phase

Hi everyone, Coach Shane is Back with another fitness/health tip for all the Mini Monstars families. Todays topic we will be covering the importance of weight training during a weight/fat loss phase.

During your weight loss phase we are aiming to keep as much muscle mass as possible. This means that the majority of weight we are losing is coming from our fat storages. 

Weight Training plays quite a substantial roll in improving body composition.

(What is Body Composition? the percentages of fat, bone, water and muscle in the human body)

We are aiming to reduce the fat and increase/keep the muscle mass. 

The higher our total muscle mass the more calories/energy we are going to burn during the day. This means if someone with high muscle mass and someone with low muscle mass didn't get out of bed and didn’t move for the whole day, the person with the higher muscle mass would burn more calories doing nothing than the person with low muscle mass. This in-turn helps you achieve your weight/fat loss goals. 

We all know someone who says...I don't want to lift weights because it will make me 'Bulky'. Lifting weights will not make you ‘bulky' during a weight loss phase. This is because when we are trying to lose weight, we want to be in a calorie deficit (This means you are eating less calories - taking in less energy than you are burning).

 While it’s not impossible it is quite hard to put on muscle mass whilst in a calorie deficit.

During weight training we are tearing our muscles fibres so it is important that you are eating quite a bit of protein and getting in at least 6 hours of sleep (this is to help repair our muscles from our weight training) 

We will cover off the nutrition side of things another time. However if you are weight training you need to be eating roughly 2grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight. 

For example if you weigh 65kgs: 

65kgsx2grams of protein = 130g of Daily Protein Intake.

Hope this helps explain and gives you a little insight into the importance of weight training during a weight loss phase. Please reach out to Coach Shane with any questions.