Weight Loss for the Lifter

In a country where nearly half of the population suffers from excess adiposity, it is only reasonable that many of its citizens are interested in reversing this trend. Excess adiposity, or “fatness” as most of us know it, is a complex first world issue that has led many people towards voluntary physical activity, exercise, and training. The interplay between adiposity and strength training is one that is poorly understood in the mainstream culture.

In modern day weight rooms, “aesthetic goals” are almost always mentioned by most clients. Most often, this refers to a loss of bodyfat. Occasionally, a new gym member walks in with a desire to get as strong as possible, with no attention paid to physical appearance. Unfortunately, this is the exception rather than the rule. Weight loss is a far more common reason for joining a gym, hiring a coach, and attempting to follow a lifting program. This is certainly a giant step in the right direction, away from sitting endlessly and snacking on cookies, chips, and other bottomless pits of poor food. However, many overfat people still do not comprehend the purpose behind lifting and incorrectly assume that it directly addresses the bodyfat component of their body composition.

Contrary to popular belief in the diet industry, loss of bodyfat is still a matter of arithmetic. Energy balance must be negative, meaning that total energy expended (i.e. calories burned) must exceed energy intake (i.e. calories consumed). This is accomplished largely through dietary manipulations in calorie intake, although increasing physical activity also provides a mild contribution.

Although all increases in activity contribute to a greater energy expenditure, strength training primarily alters body composition through an increase in muscle mass. In most people, muscle mass accounts for 60-80% of their body composition. Despite this reality, most of the general public ignores this reality and focuses on the 20-40% of their bodyweight comprised of fat mass. This is understandable if you have a strong fat guy who is an advanced lifter, but that is rarely the case.

In many instances, building muscle mass is completely ignored in favor of extreme calorie restriction, long-duration endurance exercise and/or training, and doing an endurance workout under load (i.e. short rest periods, high reps, high number of exercises, supersets, etc.). This is not a productive use of time – it often results in a weak skinny/fat phenotype post- weight loss, a rebound weight gain exceeding baseline bodyweight, and no meaningful net change in body composition. Fortunately, we have alternatives, but they are not easy.

Let’s first define the overfat lifter to make clear who this article is intended for. To review, body mass index (BMI) is a measure of bodyweight status based exclusively on height and weight. The BMI equation along with a table of categories is shown below. Body fat percentage is a measure of the ratio of fat to fat free mass and is assessed using various instruments, which are discussed in detail in my article, Body Composition for Barbell Training.