Does Lifting Weights Burn Fat?

The common assumption amongst many people is that cardio workouts are the most effective way to burn fat. While this does bear some truth, lifting weights can actually provide a better process of burning fat than cardio exercise alone.

Of course, this depends on the type of weight training you’re doing, your diet and a number of other factors, but lifting weights definitely has the potential to change your body. 

Lifting weights provides a variety of benefits, one of which is the effective burning of fat and subsequent fat loss. Through building muscle, you raise your metabolism, which can help you change your body composition and burn greater levels of fat. This is because muscle requires calories to maintain, whereas fat, which is a storage medium, doesn’t require any calories to maintain.

It is also understood that a pound of muscle burns between 10 to 30 calories a day, while a pound of fat is significantly less, only burning on average between 5 to 10 calories.

Reflecting on this, it’s easy to see how more muscular bodies are better designed to burn a greater amount calories and fat, even when resting. So, if you’re all about burning fat, lifting weights is definitely a worthwhile exercise for achieving it.

However, it must be noted that lifting weights is only truly effective if you’re using enough weight to stimulate muscle growth. In other words, fat loss may be limited if you’re comfortably lifting the weight you’ve chosen for your exercises 16-20 times.

Ideally, you shouldn’t be able to perform more than 12 reps per set, otherwise you risk going into muscular endurance territory. Therefore, in order to maximize your ability to burn fat, the weights need to be heavy

The muscle tissue built through lifting weights is fairly stable and unlikely to deteriorate if maintained to a basic level. This means that once you’ve built a decent amount of muscle, this will continue to work for you as a fat burning engine, even during periods where you’re perhaps not training overly hard. 

This goes some way to explaining why women can’t generally get away with consuming as many calories as men and not put on extra weight. Men on average have lower levels of body fat and higher levels of muscle, therefore tend to burn more calories each day, even if they’re not exercising. 

Does lifting weights burn face fat? 

Everyone has certain parts of their body that they’re less confident about and for many this is fat around the area of their face. Unlike other parts of the body where fat can be covered up and hidden, it is much more difficult to do so for areas around the face.

You could put in countless hours in the gym, desperately seeking to lose weight, but still see yourself in photos with a double chin. It can understandably be demoralizing at times. 

Face fat usually occurs for one of two reasons. Firstly, a high body fat percentage. It may sound obvious, but if you have a large percentage of fat around the rest of your body, this will invariably affect your face too. Secondly, for many people, their facial structure and genetics predispose them to roundness around the face. 

For those looking to slim down this specific area, it is unfortunately not as straightforward as it may seem. Fat around the face can’t be lost quickly, it requires you to follow a sustained balanced lifestyle. Therefore, regular exercise, a balanced diet, good sleeping pattern, and much more.

As you lose weight around the rest of your body, the same will happen around your face, it just requires patience. How quickly you’re able to lose this weight is determined by genetics, but one thing’s for sure, if you reduce your body fat levels; your face, neck and chin will gradually become leaner and more defined. 

As mentioned previously, lifting weights is an effective way of burning body fat. While, it must be noted that lifting heavy weights isn’t going to have a direct influence on getting rid of your face fat, it will certainly help the process.

Through lifting the correct amount of weight consistently, your body will build muscle, therefore facilitating the fat burning process. This will subsequently, slowly start to remove weight from around your face. 

Can I lift weights and still burn fat? 

Yes, absolutely. There’s often people who avoid lifting weights in the fear of getting too bulky or putting on extra weight. But in reality, there are very few exercises that burn fat as efficiently as weight training.

You’ll just need to make sure that you’re using enough weight to stimulate muscle growth because if you stick with weights you can comfortably do over 15 reps with, fat loss may not be as effective. 

To put it simply, if you build more muscle, your body will keep burning fat all day long. Unlike cardio exercises where you burn both muscle and fat, with weight training you’ll exclusively burn fat. This will leave you with stronger and more defined muscles as well as less fat around your body. A win win situation, right? 

Final thoughts

To provide a conclusive and comprehensive answer, lifting weights will indeed burn body fat.

Not only does it work in boosting your metabolism, making you look fitter and leaner, lifting weights will also provide you with an improved natural fat burning capacity. This includes periods of rest, where you may be as sedentary as watching TV on your couch. 

The key thing to remember is to make sure you’re doing the right type of weight training. Therefore, in order to effectively burn fat and reap the full rewards of your training, your weights need to be heavy and done in reps no greater than 12. If this is the case, you should soon notice a difference.