Does heavy lifting contribute to weight loss?

[VincentVaguer]

I've been doing weights now since January - did a 6 week course learning form and have now progressed to a twice weekly club - still learning form and overseen by an instructor. I'm doing bench presses, shoulder squats, dead lifts and russian dead lifts. I absolutely love it. I do get a lot of DOMS for a day or so but nothing awful and I quite like the feeling that I've used those muscles.

My rather vain question is - can weights contribute to weight loss? Please don't say I have to do cardio, lol, I hate it! I've said heavy lifting in my title although I am nowhere near lifting the weights that some are doing, just to distinguish it from body pump etc. Thanks.

To lose weight you have to eat less. Sad but true. Weights and exercise will tone you and build muscle.

Lifting 2/3 times a week (not body pump), getting 7k-10k steps a day, sleeping for 7+ hours a night and eating within a moderate calorie deficit should see you right.

The basic answer is no I’m afraid, but what it will do is build muscle. Muscle is more metabolically active than fat so day to day if your body composition (muscle:fat ratio) changes then even at the same weight you will burn more calories day to day than before, even at rest. If you lose fat and gain muscle then you will also look as if you have lost weight as muscle is much denser than fat (takes up less space and is firmer). You would probably be surprised how much women who lift heavy weights but look tiny actually weigh!

Yes I do realise that which is why I said will it contribute.

Surely you must use more calories doing it than sitting on the sofa watching Netflix!

This. Take photos and measurements. Your weight may not change but your body shape will. Lean muscle is much more efficient at burning energy/calories - when I’m weight training I can eat quite a lot more 😊

Yes, weights burn calories and you expend tons of energy. Also the afterburn effect where your muscles repair. It does depend on food too, if you eat excess calories burned then no.

This is oversimplified. If you want to build muscle, you need excess kcals. If you want to lose fat, you need a kcal deficit, so the two are opposed. Muscle burns kcals, fat doesn't, so even if you maintain your current fat level, and gain muscle, you will have a higher kcal requirement. So you'd be in a deficit by eating the same kcal, if you were more muscular.

Lifting weights does burn more kcal than sitting watching Netflix, so it will contribute to your kcal deficit at the time, and after you've built muscle. My advice would be to eat the same kcal you do now, make sure you have your macros right, and lift regularly. Your increased kcal requirement will burn your fat.

You will lose inches, and you may lose weight in the long run - @Watchkeys is right with this!

To give you an example, ten years ago if I wanted to lose weight id have to limit myself to 1400 calories a day, for slow weight loss. I found that hard to do, especially if eating out, and rarely kept weight off (I wasn't big, but I'm a small frame and was getting a bit of a belly)

These days if I eat less than 1900 calories I start to lose weight. I haven't lost weight because I eat more than that - I'm still wanting to build muscle - but you can see how much easier it is for me to manage my weight now, and how much easier it would be to lose weight now - so much more wriggle room!

I'm 2kg heavier than I was back then, smaller waist. Legs and booty are the same size but more muscular. Only area I've put on any noticeable inches is my shoulders and biceps, but it's not enough that anyone else would notice, just how my t-shirts fit!

ten years ago if I wanted to lose weight id have to limit myself to 1400 calories a day

I wonder how you worked this out, @Proteinpudding ? It's very low.

I think it's also worth noting that the body burns calories doing a lot of stuff. It's not just exercise v no exercise. We could eat less calories and the body could compensate by doing less work on hormonal regulation, for example, which explains why, sometimes, when people 'go on a diet', their moods go haywire, and they don't lose the weight they thought they would. Or they might suddenly start suffering from poor skin or bad hair or irregular periods or bad breath or achy joints or crap sleep or... the list is endless. Our bodies make a decision about what to do with a kcal deficit. It's not a simple either/or.

@Watchkeys I appreciate it sounds low, but I was in my thirties, short, 55kg with very little natural muscle and a sedentary job. Maintenance would have been a little higher but i had to stick to 1300-1400 to lose weight back then.

These days with a bit of muscle on my frame (and despite being in my forties, and still a shorty of course) I believe my maintenance is around 2200 to 2400 depending on my activity levels, and whenever I've wanted to lose a bit of weight I've aimed to eat 1900 and I've started losing.

Strength training for me has made weight management much easier.

@Proteinpudding

Sounds like you're much healthier now. The 2000kcal per woman per day thing does drive me a bit nuts. Very few of us are actually 'average', and we're all told that the same thing is what we should aim for.

True, but depressingly in my case it was worse, maintenance would have been around 1600-1700! I wasn't unhealthy, just naturally a small frame, and being a bit older I really didn't need many calories at all. I'm happier now I'm stronger and don't have to watch what I'm eating all the time.

In 6 months of doing CrossFit so very similar exercises to you, I’ve gone down a full clothes size and look much more toned. I’m also more flexible and the aches and pains I was getting now I’m in my 50s have stopped. I’ve not lost a lb on the scales as I’m going to add in making some changes to what eat (a little more lean protein and a little less “junk”) to get the scales ticking down but I’m so much happier, healthier and stronger and looking much better body shape wise too.

You don’t need to do cardio but increasing your NEAT (non exercise activity thermogenesis) is perhaps more effective for calorie burn than pure planned exercise itself. So that’s just daily movement, walking to the shops, standing up, moving around. The PP suggestions. Of 10k steps worth of daily movement is what I aim for. Exercise (EAT), as in planned exercise, burns surprisingly few calories; loads of other benefits obvs.

Most of your calories are burned at rest, 70%, NEAT at 15%, TEF (thermic effect of food) 10%, EAT 5%. Anything above this will be stored as extra energy/fat.

Protein has the highest thermic effect so make sure your meals have plenty of protein as it takes more calories to digest them and it’ll help your weight training.

I’m eating in a small surplus (+200kcal) to improve my lifting. I’ve not gained any weight/fat. My protein intake is about 120 - 140g a day.

Nothing beats being and feeling strong. If you’re looking for inspiration, missnoralifts, on IG is an 81 year old weight lifter.

You want to do what's called "body recomposition," @VincentVaguer I've done it - built muscle while dropping weight. I lost 11 kilos in a year & in the same time went from novice lifter to doing about a 70 k deadlift & a 45 k back squat (I now lift much heavier).

Have a look at "body recomp" online - I've watched MegSquats and Eugene Teo on YouTube on this subject.

The more muscle tissue you have the greater your capacity to store glycogen in your body, this means that you have better insulin sensitivity and are less likely to gain fat