Lose Weight the Smart Way

The best way to lose weight is to weight train. Contrary to popular opinion, losing weight is not best accomplished by starvation dieting or endless cardio workouts.

In fact, you can lose body fat and build muscle mass at the same time. You do this through bodybuilding. You see, the more muscle mass you have, the more calories you consume at rest. So, building muscle increases your metabolism.

Additionally, eating smaller, more frequent meals increases your metabolism. This practice is a time-honored bodybuilding "secret." You keep your blood sugar at a more constant level by eating more often; you get less peaks and valleys. And it's the valleys that kill all diets. Being hungry will drive most people mad. It also won't help you lose weight.

Couple sound weight training with a good diet plan and add in fat-loss supplements and aerobic activity, and you've got a GREAT 4-prong approach to weight loss.

Remember, losing weight is simply a mathematical formula: Take in less calories than you expend. But add in weight training and you get a leveraged formula because your increased muscle mass actually burns more calories, even at rest!

Also remember that you may not lose a lot of weight following the methods below; rather, you'll lose a LOT of fat. But the increased muscle mass offsets a lot of the fat loss. In fact, you may even gain weight if you hit the weights hard enough!

If this prospect doesn't appeal to you, lift lighter weights for more sets and reps and do more cardio, like walking, running, and cycling.

Another exercise regimen you can try is interval training and/or circuit training. Interval training is a method whereby you workout hard for brief amounts of time. This practice has been shown to accelerate fat loss. Circuit training is weight training where you take a sequence of weightlifting exercises and do one set per exercise for an entire cycle.

You'll want to employ compound weight resistance exercises like squats, bench presses, and lat pull-downs. In short, you want to involve many muscle groups simultaneously. Do one set of squats, then without rest one set of benches, then a set of lat pull-downs. Keep going until you've completed one circuit. Then rest.

The idea is to keep up your pulse rate in the 60-80 percent max range.

TIP: Max heart rate is 220 minus your age. So, if you're 50, your max heart rate is 170. You'll then want to stay in the 100-140 beats per minute range.

Here are some specific resources for losing weight:

• Circuit training
• Get ripped
• Lose fat, gain muscle
• Body fat meltdown using the South Beach Diet
• Interval training for fat loss
• Exercise On a Treadmill to lose weight, build cardiovascular fitness
• Inspirations Personal Training -- Certified Fitness Trainer Cindy Brotherston provides cutting-edge fitness and weight loss information, tools, and resources from her website and her new Toronto area studio.