Takeaways

• The 4 "pillars" of healthy weight loss include a well-balanced, nutritious diet (that keeps you in a calorie deficit), adequate high-quality sleep, appropriate stress management, and physical activity.

• Incorporating strength training into your exercise is crucial for healthy, sustained weight loss. It helps maintain your metabolism even as you continue losing weight.

• Beyond helping you burn more calories at rest, gaining more muscle also benefits your health (e.g., it improves heart health and regulates blood sugar levels).

• There are many ways you can perform resistance training. Find a strength training you enjoy, so you stay consistent with it.

• Ideally, you should strength train at least 3 times per week. However, those new to fitness will likely benefit from gradually working up to that frequency.

When it comes to weight loss, exercise is undeniably important. Yet, the type of exercise you perform may matter more than you think. Unfortunately, many individuals get misled by focusing on calories—counting calories to compare the calories they burn to the calories they consume.

While this matters to some extent, there’s a key piece missing in the calories-in-calories-out strategy. So, if you’re wondering why you’ve plateaued or begun to gain some weight back even when eating less than before, this article could help you out. Here, we cover what you need to know about the secret to sustaining weight loss (i.e., resistance training), including whether you should consider strength training and, more importantly, how you could incorporate it into your life. 

What Are the Pillars of Healthy Weight Loss?

Before we dig deeper into the concept of strength training, let’s take a closer look at the other pillars of healthy weight loss. At the end of the day, you could do everything right when it comes to resistance training. However, if you don’t have these other variables down-pat, you might find it difficult to sustain your weight loss. So, what should you be aware of?

1. Your Diet

When we mention the word “diet,” many people quickly think of cutting calories or cutting out entire food groups (hello, keto diet!). Yet, “diet” also simply refers to what you eat day-in and day-out. 

When it comes to weight loss and your diet, here are a few tips:

• Track your calories to ensure you’re not overeating.

• Cut out empty calories, such as processed and sugary foods.

• Avoid fad diets that are not sustainable.

• Focus on eating whole and nutrient-rich foods.

2. Sleep Quality and Quantity

Sleep is one of the most underrated factors associated with sustainable weight loss. Studies even demonstrate how insufficient sleep undermines dietary efforts associated with losing weight (1). Adequate sleep is even considered a viable treatment option for obesity (2). All of this is to say that sleep is important if your goal is to lose fat!

Without sleep, your body does not have sufficient time to rest and recover. This can lead to high stress levels, potentially detering weight loss efforts. When the body is stressed, it’s that much harder to lose weight. This is due to the high levels  of cortisol in the body, which promote fat storage, particularly around the mid-section.

Most experts recommend that the average adult gets 7to 9 hours of quality sleep per night. If you’re constantly waking up tired, even after sleeping for 8 hours, you may want to discuss your options with your doctor. From there, they may recommend a sleep study to help you get to the bottom of your sleep woes.

3. Emotional and Mental Health

Emotional stress can slow down your metabolism, increase your appetite (particularly for energy-dense foods), lead to emotional eating, and encourage sedentary behaviors due to a lack of motivation.

When working to improve this area of your life, talking with a professional can help you navigate through your emotions and mental state. Additionally, meditation, gratitude, deep breathing, and other relaxation techniques can help you learn to manage your stress and become more emotionally resilient.

4. Physical Activity

For weight loss, exercise is the last piece of the equation. Get your foundations (the above pillars) nailed down, then incorporate a regular exercise routine. For instance, taking daily walks is a great habit that can help you lose and sustain weight loss. Meanwhile, strength training can help you build muscle, boosting your metabolic rate (as described in more detail below).

The Role of Resistance Training in Healthy Weight Loss

When it comes to weight loss and exercise, most people automatically think of doing more cardio. While this is important to help you burn more calories, it’s not sufficient in the long run and may lead to weight loss plateaus.

Initial weight loss due to caloric restriction usually happens due to lost water and muscle, along with some fat. Eventually, this leads to a weight loss plateau, or even a rebound, because the body has less muscle tissue. This means you burn fewer calories at rest, and it also means you will need to eat even less, to continue to lose weight. This leads to a vicious, unsustainable cycle.

To avoid this pitfall, you need to increase your muscle mass to continue to lose weight, as well as sustain it.

Your body composition refers to the percentage of muscle, fat, and other tissue you have (3). Throughout your weight loss journey, your focus should be to gain muscle. In turn, this will actually help you burn fat. 

A pound of muscle burns 3 times more calories at rest than a pound of fat. In other words, the more muscle you have, the more calories your body burns at rest.

Gaining muscle also has the ability to improve heart health, help regulate blood sugar levels, enhance emotional well-being, and improve mobility (which, in turn, can enhance athletic performance and lower an individual’s risk of injuries).

Examples of Resistance Training

There are various ways you can perform resistance training, including:

• Bodyweight exercises (pushups, planks, squats, etc.)

• Weight training (using dumbbells, medicine balls, sandbags, and barbells for bicep curls, deadlifts, squats, and more)

• Resistance bands (these work similarly to weights but with some minor adjustments)

• Yoga (power yoga can actually offer a form of bodyweight strength training)

Ultimately, it’s up to you to find the type of strength training you enjoy that fits into your lifestyle, which leads us right into the last section of this article.

How to Incorporate Resistance Training Into Your Life

You don’t necessarily need a gym or any equipment to achieve weight loss with exercise. In fact, using your body weight works just fine, especially if you’re just starting out. Alternatively, you can join a gym or attend resistance training classes to help motivate you to stick with it.

Ideally, you want to strength train at least 3 times per week for optimal muscle gain. However, if you’re a beginner, do ease into a fitness routine by starting with just once or twice—then gradually increase the frequency as and when you’re able. 

Throughout this process, you’ll want to apply the concept of progressive overload, which involves gradually increasing the demands on your neuromuscular system, such as increasing the number of reps, increasing the range of motion, increasing your frequency of workouts, or increasing the load of each exercise. This challenges your body, forcing it to adapt and build new muscle tissue. For instance, you might start out on your knees when performing push-ups, eventually progressing to your toes. Or you might perform bodyweight squats, eventually adding jumps or a weighted backpack. 

With weight loss, exercise, in particular, resistance training, can help you achieve sustainability and avoid the yo-yo effect. Sustainable weight loss is entirely achievable. Usually, it just takes time, consistent effort, and the right actions to get you to where you want to be.