Reconditioning For Women – “I’m not losing weight!”

This is for the women in the class who tell me they are not losing weight.

Many women when starting the class say this to me, and my reply is always the same: “well are you noticing any changes?” They seem broken like the last week or two has been in vain, like the scales has placed them in fitness purgatory, then they reply “Well no I’m not losing any weight, but I seem to be toning up”…

Hhhhmmmm…

When most women come through my doors what they hope to achieve with me is to lose fat, or as they call it “lose weight”. They can become fixated on seeing a drop on that scales. They might be misinformed that a drop in body fat while toning up will have a direct reduction in their body weight. Honestly, this is because this is because how they have been educated; incorrectly. Special K, Weight Watchers and all these short term solutions have you dropping weight, but their results won’t last. Radically dropping calories without training will result in a breakdown of muscle tissue, which is where most of the weight lost will be seen.

In the Underground System we do a lot of high intensity training, using a lot of resistance. Resistance training (weights etc.) stimulates muscle to grow when fed the right nutrients, namely Protein. Muscle weighs more than fat, so as you build small amounts of muscle, this is off-set by the body fat you are losing. This is more prevalent in the early stages of the class as you put on muscle quicker when adopting resistance training for the first time (or if it has been a while).

All’s not lost… Yet!

As your body builds more muscle your metabolism will raise. An extra pound of muscle can burn an extra 40-60 calories a day by just being there. This combined with the fact that as you get fitter you can perform more intensely in the class, will result in a great increase in your metabolism. As your muscle and aerobic fitness grows so will your calorie expenditure. When your muscles build to a certain size its development will slow down somewhat, but your fat burning will remain increased. This is why many women tone up in the first couple of weeks in the class (really burning body fat), but their weight will only start to drop after this time. This balance of muscle gained and fat lost will tip more towards the latter.

This is called Reconditioning, and it is by far the healthiest way to lose weight, because it means your new metabolism will help you keep the weight off. Forget the fads and the crappy money driven Special K diets (hilarious this is even legal), you must train to build muscle and develop a strong and efficient metabolism, one that will really keep you in that red dress for years to come.