Build Muscle, Burn Fat
By Mary Christ
By Mary Christ
It's resolution season and the rustle of low-carb food wrappers is everywhere. But the must-have item -- the one that can help you look leaner and burn calories all day long -- isn't stocked in the supermarket. Like Dorothy and her ruby slippers, you've had it all along: muscle.
The more of it you build, the more you'll rev up your metabolism and burn calories. "People lose about one-fourth of a pound of muscle per year and replace it with at least that much fat," says Miriam Nelson, PhD, author of Strong Women Stay Slim (Bantam, 1999). And unlike muscle, fat doesn't do much in the way of calorie burning.
Trade fat for muscle, however, and the scenario changes. For each extra pound of muscle, you'll burn about 12,000 calories a year without lifting a finger, about what it takes to lose three pounds of fat. Nelson has found that women who strength train drop a dress size even without shedding any weight. That's because muscle takes up less space than fat.
Strength training is also like putting money in the bone bank. Researchers at the University of Arizona, in Tucson, found that the more total weight a woman lifted over a year, the more she increased bone density in her hips, key to guarding against later fractures. The results back up recent findings from the Nurses' Health Study that showed that women who walked at least four hours per week -- a great weight-bearing exercise, by the way -- lowered their risk of hip fractures by about 40 percent compared with their couch potato sisters.
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