“Strong is the new skinny. has become a popular expression. Many people go to the gym because they want to lose weight, but are there benefits to getting stronger over getting leaner? 

Strength Training Can Help You Lose Weight

Well, it turns out that focusing on getting strong leads to getting leaner! Getting stronger helps you to lose weight purely because the exercises are more geared towards hypertrophy. Hypertrophy is when you are weakening or eroding a muscle to build back stronger, and in order to do that, you've got to go to fatigue in your training.

So, rather than hitting a treadmill or going for a run, which means that you only end up losing minimal calories, strength training is a full-body workout that pushes you to your limits. This is what the principles of high-intensity interval training focus on. If you want to push yourself to your limits, but you don't want to go to the gym, you can use home equipment providers like Hoist Fitness to experience hypertrophy at home. Because strength training is, pound-for-pound, better for weight loss than cardio, aiming to get stronger means that you will likely lose weight as a side effect.

Getting Stronger is Beneficial for Your Overall Health

When we focus on losing weight, this means that we end up doing whatever it takes to change the number on the scale, regardless of the impact it has on our health. When we focus on getting stronger, we are considering the other components associated with building strength. This means nutrition, rest and recovery, and everything else. But when we are losing weight, this means that we are not necessarily doing it for our health. Getting stronger is better for your health for this reason. In order to gain strength, you've got to get healthier. Because when you are tearing muscle fibers, if you don't pack enough nutrition into your diet, you will soon feel worse as a result. 

Getting Stronger Means You Can Eat More

When you do it right, a good strength program means that you will need to eat a certain amount of calories. One of the biggest mistakes many people make when they embark on a weight training regime to lose weight is that they do not fuel themselves enough. For many people who just start out in weight training, they think that because they want to lose weight, or get skinny, that they just need to “go big or go home,” but they do not feed themselves enough. If you only take in 1000 calories a day, this means you will not progress with your strength training. In order to get stronger, you will need to eat a certain amount of calories for gaining muscle mass. And it's important to note here that many women worry that they are going to become bulky, but female genetics do not allow women to be overly muscly. 

If you are looking for the keys to a healthy life, it is time to focus on strength, not losing weight.