Improve Body Composition

When you shift your effort to weights instead of cardio, you can:

• Put more muscle on your body, which burns more calories at rest

• Recover better, leading to more energy for training and throughout the day

• Manage appetite instead of insatiable hunger

• A calorie deficit is key for losing weight

• Cardio and weights burn similar amounts – but people quit high intensity cardio sooner

• Weight training also elevates your metabolism an hour or so after training, burning an extra 50-100 calories

• As your body repairs from weight training, it also burns another 100 calories or so for up to 24-48 hours

• Lifting preserves muscle – even as you lose fat

• More muscle = burning more calories at rest. (Cardio doesn’t do this.)

• Weight training suppresses appetite better than high intensity cardio

• Diminishing returns are a thing – our bodies start to conserve calories for survival instead of burning them away.

Just as important as resistance training is for improving body composition; NUTRITION is as well! Here are foods that are great to include with your fitness!

Protein Foods to Improve Body Composition:

These foods have a high ratio of protein per calorie with greater than 10 grams/100 calories. These foods are said to be “protein dense” because they are low in both carbohydrates and fat. They also have high protein quality and bioavailability. These characteristics make them ideal foods sources for creating weight loss meals.

·       Meats: (lean, roasted or broiled; contain at least 8 grams protein/ounce)

Beef (sirloin)

Pork (loin)

Chicken (skinless)

Turkey

·       Fish: (baked or broiled; contain about 6 grams protein/ounce)

Salmon

Tuna

Halibut

Trout

Shrimp

Soy products:

Tempeh

Tofu

Egg Whites

Whole Egg (8.6 grams/100 calories)