Lifting Weights to Lose Weight: The Surprising Truth

Working out and lifting weights has become synonymous with losing weight, but is that really true?

If you’re trying to lose weight, you know hitting the gym can help.

Even Tony Soprano knows it.

Or does he?

Should you lift weights to lose weight?

Today, I’m going to answer that question. You’ll learn whether or not lifting weights and strength training can really help you lose weight or if you should be focusing on something else. 

Losing weight vs. losing fat

If you’re trying to lose weight, odds are you actually want to lose body fat. Sometimes the two terms are used interchangeably, but there is a difference.

The scale measures more than just your body fat. It also measures everything in your body including muscle, bones, what you had for lunch and the amount of water in your body at any given time.

Losing mostly body fat is going to lead to you looking very different than if you just wanted to lose weight.

Check out my friend Lexi’s fat loss progress.

Lexi lost over 2 inches on her waist in just 8 weeks, and looks drastically different!

What you might find surprising is that the difference in Lexi’s weight is only about 5 pounds between both pictures.

The reason is that she lost body fat and gained muscle during the first few weeks we worked together. So even though she didn’t lose all that much weight, she lost body fat and gained muscle, which changed how her body looks.

How fat loss works

In order to lose body fat, you need to be in a calorie deficit. What is a calorie deficit? You’re in a calorie deficit if you’re burning more calories than you’re consuming.

To burn more calories than you consume, you need to either consume less calories or make your body burn more calories.

Consuming less calories is pretty straightforward. There are many diets out there, all of which focus on restricting the amount of calories you consume.

I think counting calories is the most efficient and effective way to consume less calories. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll only need 5-10 minutes a day to make sure you’re on the right track to reaching your goals.

To make your body burn more calories, you need to increase your metabolism.

What is your metabolism?

Your metabolism is all the processes in your body that burn calories.

It’s made up of 4 parts:

• • The amount of calories you burn at rest is called your basal metabolic rate, or BMR for short. It’s the amount of calories your body needs to keep your organs functioning and to keep you breathing.
  • Your exercise associated thermogenesis, or EAT for short, is how many calories you burn from doing planned activity (like lifting weights or cardio).
  • How many calories you burn from doing various activities throughout the day like walking, driving or working is called your non-exercise associated thermogenesis, or NEAT for short.
  • Your body requires a certain amount of calories to break down the food you eat and use it for energy. This is called the thermic effect of food, or TEF for short.

In order to increase your metabolism, one of the 4 processes above must be affected! 

When you first think about losing weight, your mind probably immediately jumps to increasing the amount of exercise you do (like lifting weights).

And while exercising more and lifting weights can increase the amount of calories you burn, it’s probably not going to help you lose weight as much as you think it will.

Why lifting weights (probably) won’t make you lose weight

Look, I love lifting weights. 

There are so many benefits to building muscle and getting stronger, but losing weight most likely isn’t one of them.

There are 3 main reasons why.

#1: Lifting weights doesn’t burn that many calories

We already talked about how in order to increase your metabolism, you need to burn more calories through one of the four metabolic processes in your body.

Common sense would tell you that if you increase the amount of exercise you do, you should burn more calories which would help you create a calorie deficit.

And this extra exercise may be enough to create a calorie deficit for some people who are extremely inactive or have a lot of weight to lose. 

But for most people, lifting weights or exercising in general is not going to be enough to create a calorie deficit without changing your diet.

Most people are going to burn somewhere between 4 and 8 calories per minute during a strength training workout (1). 

So if you strength train for 60 minutes, you’ll probably burn somewhere between 240 and 480 calories.

This is a big range, but there’s a lot that goes into how many calories you burn while strength training, such as: 

• • The stronger you are, the more calories you’ll burn. Lifting heavy weights takes a lot of energy!
  • If you’re pairing exercises together in a superset, you’ll burn more calories than if you do exercises on their own.
  • Whether you do more compound exercises (like barbell squats, bench presses and deadlifts) or more isolation exercises (like barbell curls, lateral raises and tricep extensions).

If you’re strength training 3-4 times a week, it’s true you will be burning a few hundred extra calories per day. 

And again, if you are very overweight, these few hundred calories might be enough to put you into a calorie deficit.

But it’s more than likely lifting weights alone won’t burn enough calories to help you lose weight, especially when you consider reason #2..

#2: The more you exercise, the more your body fights back

Let’s say you wake up early and head to the gym to lift weights. After crushing a leg workout, you’re zapped.

You feel like Jordan Belfort trying to get to his car after taking a serious amount of drugs in “The Wolf of Wall Street”..

It’s very likely that you’ll end up moving around less than you normally would the rest of the day. You might take the elevator at work instead of the stairs, put off your grocery shopping until the following day, and stay in and watch a movie instead of going out.

By moving around less the rest of the day, you’ll burn fewer calories than you normally would and offset some of the calories you burned during your workout.

So you might have burned 300 calories during your leg workout, but by moving less the rest of the day you end up burning 200 calories fewer than you normally do, putting you at only a 100 calorie deficit for the day! 

This is called the constrained energy model, and it’s how your body tries to maintain its weight (2). 

You could try to do longer workouts or lift weights more often throughout the week, but for all intents and purposes it’s not going to be very practical.

It’s going to be hard for most people to find time to lift weights more than 3-4 days a week, and if your goal is to lose weight, that’s all you need.

#3: Muscle doesn’t burn much more calories than fat does

There used to be a myth in the fitness world that muscle burns way more calories at rest than fat does. 

People thought that by adding a few pounds of muscle, your metabolism would skyrocket and you’d burn a ton of extra calories.

Unfortunately, that’s not really true.

While it’s true that muscle does burn more calories at rest than fat does, it’s not as much of a difference as people once thought. A pound of muscle burns about 6 calories per day at rest, while a pound of fat burns about 2 calories per day at rest (3).

Let’s do some quick math.

If you lost 20 pounds of fat and gained 20 pounds of muscle, you would only burn an additional 80 calories per day. 

That’s the equivalent of one small apple.

Now, this isn’t exactly correct, because in reality you would probably burn more calories than that. You would be leaner and likely more active than you would have been at a higher body fat percentage. In reality, muscle burns more like 9-10 calories per day at rest, according to researcher Greg Nuckols (4). 

The point is that adding a few pounds of muscle is not going to drastically change your metabolism and turn you into a calorie burning machine. 

Why you should lift weights if your goal is to lose weight

Now, even though I just spent the first part of this article explaining why lifting weights probably isn’t going to lead to fat loss, I still think you should prioritize strength training and lifting weights when your goal is fat loss.

Lifting weights and strength training is going to massively benefit you on your fat loss journey.

Here’s why.

Strength training will make you look better

If you’re somebody who wants to lose weight, chances are you want to look better as well as feel better.

I’m not saying that you want to look shredded or step on a bodybuilding stage, but I’d be willing to bet that you want to look and feel better in your own skin.

Plain and simple, building muscle from lifting weights is going to make you look better as you lose weight.

As you lose weight, you want to lose as much body fat while keeping as much muscle as you possibly can.

For women, muscle is going to give you a rounder, firmer butt and give you the toned look that you want.

Muscle is going to give men a chest, shoulders, and arms.

When you neglect lifting weights and just focus on cardio, you won’t have the same body composition as someone who makes strength training a priority. A lot of times, you might lose weight and hit a number on the scale, but you won’t look as good as you think you will.

Lifting weights will improve your health

Strength training will help you live a healthier, longer life.

And that’s not just my opinion as a guy who loves lifting weights!

Research has shown that lifting weights and strength training can decrease your chances of dying early from all causes! (5)

Strength training helps to:

• • Build strength (obviously!)
  • Increase your bone density
  • Helps you become more flexible and mobile (when done the right way!)
  • Improves heart health

While these aren’t strictly related to weight loss, most people who want to lose weight also want to become healthier.

Strength training and lifting weights will absolutely help with that.

Getting stronger will help you feel better

As you get stronger in the gym, everyday things are going to feel easier.

Going grocery shopping, household chores and other everyday activities that take up a lot of your energy are going to feel like much less of a challenge.

Now, I’m not saying that you need to become a world class strongman and deadlift 1,000 pounds..

What I am saying is that by increasing your strength, you’re going to feel better and have more energy throughout the day.

Having more energy and feeling better throughout the day can literally be life changing.

You’ll be more productive at work, be a better partner, play with your kids more, get more chores done.. The list is endless!

The point is lifting weights is an investment of time that can have huge benefits extending far beyond simply losing weight.

Having a routine will help build momentum

If you’ve ever wanted to make a change in your life but don’t know where to start, you’re not alone. 

I’m guilty of sitting around, waiting for something to get me motivated to make a change.

The thing is, that’s not how motivation works. You need to start by taking action. 

Taking action leads to results. The results you see lead to motivation. Motivation to keep going, and keep seeing results.

When you start a lifting routine, you’re going to see results in the gym. You’ll see your weights increase and you’ll notice changes in your body.

These positive results can and will help you create habits outside of the gym, and build momentum, like:

• • Sleeping better
  • Choosing healthier foods 
  • Getting more activity outside of the gym

While it isn’t the only benefit of lifting weights, these habits are essential for successful weight loss.

What you should focus on to lose weight

First, I’m going to shamelessly plug my own fat loss guide. 

It’s 100% free and has everything you need to know about how to lose fat and keep it off forever.

Just click the link below and I’ll send it right over to you.

While you’re waiting for it to get to your inbox, here are 4 things you need to do if your goal is to lose weight:

Make sure you’re in a calorie deficit

We’ve already gone over this, so I’m not going to beat a horse that’s already dead.

Counting your calories is the fastest and most efficient way to make sure you’re in a calorie deficit. You’re also going to learn a ton about what is in the food you eat every day.

If counting calories isn’t your thing, you can still lose weight. You still need to be in a calorie deficit though!

Getting enough protein

Protein is going to help you stay full while you’re in a calorie deficit and it’s going to help you keep your muscle as you lose body fat.

Staying full while you’re in a calorie deficit is going to make you a much more pleasant person to be around.

For most people, I recommend 1 gram of protein per pound of goal body weight.

So if you’re 200lbs and looking to lose 20lbs, you would simply shoot to get 180 grams of protein every day.

Strength training (lifting weights)

I’m going to plug another one of my freebies. 

If you want 50 free workouts to help you build muscle and get stronger than you’ve ever imagined, click the link below and I’ll send my strength training guide right over.

Daily step goal

Walking is going to increase a part of your metabolism called NEAT. If you remember from earlier in the article, NEAT is how many calories you burn from activities that are outside of exercise.

Research has shown that people can have metabolisms that vary by up to 2,000 calories, largely because of differences in NEAT! (6)

Getting more steps every day is a simple and effective way to increase how many calories you burn each day. 

Remember how you tend to burn less calories after doing a hard workout? Making sure you get enough steps in can help check this, and make sure your calorie burn doesn’t drop off for the day after doing a hard workout.

How many steps should you shoot for?

People who get 7,000 to 10,000 steps per day tend to live longer and have a lower risk of dying early from all causes than those who don’t (7).

Some simple ways to get more steps in are:

• • Schedule walks like any other part of your day: Planning a few 5-10 minute walks throughout your day will help you break your step goal into more manageable chunks.
  • Combine walking with something else you enjoy: Walking with family members, listening to a podcast, or even calling a friend while you walk can all be ways to make walking something you’re more likely to do.
  • Take the stairs and park at the back of the parking lot: These might sound like they don’t matter, but little changes can add up throughout the day. 

Lifting Weights to Lose Weight: The Verdict

By now, you should know that lifting weights alone is probably not enough to make you lose weight. 

It’s an essential part of the fat loss equation, but you shouldn’t expect to start lifting weights and magically get lean.

Lifting weights and strength training is amazing for your body composition and overall health, so it should be your priority when working out in the gym.

To lose weight, focus more on how many calories you’re consuming rather than how many calories you’re burning. 

I promise you’ll see much faster progress.

If you want help putting all this together, you can apply for coaching to see if we’d be a good fit for each other. I’ll take all the guesswork out of your fitness and nutrition and design a plan that works for you.

Thanks for reading, and leave any questions you have below!