Working out has really branched out greatly over the years, and so many people seem to have different feelings about working out, along with how they feel about certain kinds of working out in general. There are so many varieties of workouts for instance, body building, weight lifting, cardiovascular, high interval training, yoga and so much more. Of course with all of that people have to put into consideration that everyone's body takes differently to different workouts and exercises. Also on top of that everyone has different goals that they are trying to reach and accomplish. For instance, some people are trying to get to a certain physic to compete in a bikini competition, other's may be trying to build muscle mass and become stronger to compete in a lifting competition, there are also cases where people just workout because they enjoy it and enjoy living a healthy lifestyle and keeping their body fit. There are a couple key factors having to do with lifting weights and the way people view the information. The knowledge that people have about fitness and what they think certain workouts do is not always right and can eventually hurt people if they are not careful. In order to burn more calories longer and enhance fat loss faster rather than just doing constant cardio, individuals should incorporate weight lifting into their workout routines, women need to shake the belief that they will become "big and bulky", and people should educate themselves on the difference between fat loss and weight loss and how the number on the scale is not always going to be telling someone if they have actually lost any fat due to the fact that muscle and fat weigh the same but take up different amounts of space in your body resulting in a different body figure. 

Many people now-a-days seem to believe that in order to lose fat, you need to jump on a treadmill for hours and just run. With lots of research that has been done and is always still being done this is not the case at all. When you run you burn calories at that moment yes, but once you are done running there is not much more calorie burning going on after the fact. Bodybuilding.com has done some research towards this and found that weight lifting enhances your calorie burn after your workout as well as during. "Studies have demonstrated that after a weight training workout, the metabolism can be boosted for up to 36 hours post-workout, meaning rather than burning say 60 calories an hour while sitting and watching TV, you're burning 70" (Shannon Clark). Thinking about this in terms of trying to lose weight, I think this already gives you a great view on how to look at losing weight and how much that will add up in the end. Livestrong.com also has a great informative article about weights versus cardio. They give a great example of how to look at weight lifting and how to visualize what it does for you and your body: "Think of it like this: Muscles are 'thirsty' from a metabolic perspective. The more muscle you have, the more fuel you are constantly burning" (Mike Robertson). The way this is worded and the visual picture they draw for you is great using the descriptive word "thirsty" to really help you expand and see further into the situation about what is going on inside of someone's body when you start to think about how the muscles and fat in your body work and how they continue to grow. Basically saying that the more muscle you have on your body, the "thirstier" it becomes making your body burn more calories. There are so many different types of workouts and exercises. With that being said, there are also some that help promote fat loss faster than others and allow more calorie burn. A lot of people do not realize that a certain exercise can help promote certain muscle growth along with possibly several muscle groups being worked out in just one exercise. Also certain muscles are going to grow faster than others so you know need to know how to work them and when. "Exercises that recruit the largest number of muscles (squats, lunges, kettlebell swings, squat thrusts, burpees, inverted rows, pull ups, and push-ups)" (Steve Nerdfitness.com). All of these exercises are going to be great to help boost your metabolism which will allow you to help increase calorie burn resulting in fat loss faster. This last website goes almost against the argument that weight lifting helps enhance fat lass. From the website caloriesecrets.net they tend to lean a little more towards cardiovascular exercise being the one that is going to help you lose fat faster. Here is one thing they do say though that is very important when it comes to weight lifting that people do not realize and then they step on the scale. "Muscle also weighs more than fat, so if you are doing resistance training, you may not notice any difference on the scales" (Naomi Tupper). This is crucial when it comes to people worrying about weight loss. Yes, you may be lifting weights now which is going to result in you gaining muscle but the number on the scale isn't necessarily going to go down. This is because muscle weighs the more then fat, but takes up less space. Which may make you think you are gaining weight or not getting anywhere. In reality though you are really gaining muscle but your figure will most likely be enhanced to a physic that you have been trying to reach. I myself have been weight lifting for a little under a year now and I hate cardio it is the my least favorite workout to do just because I get bored very easily doing the same exact thing constantly my whole workout, but I have decided to add cardio into my workouts to help burn a little extra calories at the end of my workouts. But the twist I put on my cardio is, I always do my running after my lifting, this is because if you run before you lift you use all your energy while you run so when you go to lift, you do not have all your energy so your body ends up taking the energy from your muscles resulting in you losing muscle mass which you do not want of course. 

As a girl you always have people say things to you about the fact that you lift weights and if you do your going to become "big and bulky", this is not the case at all. Lifting weights helps reduce body fat which for majority of women, is what they are looking for. In womenshealthmag.com, they discuss the best way for women to weight lift: "Those two sessions a week can reduce overall body fat by about 3 percentage points in just 10 weeks, even if you don't cut a single calorie" ( Lauren Aaronson). Knowing that if you change up your workout routine just a bit and in weights as little as two days a week, it will help enhance your overall body fat loss, making goals you have set much easier to reach. This helps to reassure women that one you are not going to become a huge macho women if you lift weight, it actually helps reduce your body fat, so it is helping someone lose the weight you are trying to burn off. In another article from womenshealthmag.com they give you 12 reasons why you should start lifting weights. "Muscle loss mass may drop your scale weight, but it doesn't improve your reflection in the mirror and it makes you more likely to gain back the flab you lost" (Adam Campbell). This is great that they say this because it really puts everything into perspective, because it helps you visually be able to see that you may be losing weight, but that does not mean it is fat, it could very easily be muscle which is the complete opposite thing you would want to be losing. So like mentioned earlier about your scale dropping in number or possibly going up, this is happening because muscle takes up less space in your body but usually weights more, so granted your figure is going to look better with more muscle even if the scale is higher with more muscle rather than less. Now that there is some reasons as to why you should add weight lifting to your workout schedule, here is some information about the best way to gain lean muscle mass, and allow yourself to get to that dream body you want to have. People have this thought that if you lift heavy all the time you are going to become huge. Cardiello as well as many other trainers and people that workout like to let people know that you don't have to stay light with weight all the time, especially if you can go up in weight. "Train like a man, look like a lady. Do not be afraid of bigger weights! If you lift like the boys, your body produces testosterone in order to adapt to the big stress that you place on it, and this helps build muscle" (Jay Cardiello). This is great for ladies to remember, women do not have nearly as much testosterone as men do. With that being said that is what keeps women from becoming "big and bulky". If you can lift the weight, lift it, do not go light just because you think you are going to gain too much muscle. Your body produces the testosterone to help you get to where you want to be. On lifehack.org they give you 6 reasons why women should lift weights. They also explain how having more muscle on your body is going to consume more room taking up space where fat would try to store itself. "The less lean muscle you have on your body, the more fat your body will store, and the harder it will be to lose weight, or even maintain a weight you're happy with" (Alon Shabo). Basically this helps you see that the more muscle you have on your body, it ends up giving less room for fat. You are not necessarily going to be dropping weight, but you will most likely be dropping pants sizes, seeing a different figure in the mirror, a more toned, lean, stronger and confident person. They also had a study done with females adding weight lifting into their routine without any cardio at all and the results clearly show that adding in weight lifting greatly enhances your fat loss faster than just cardio. "In one study on over 700 females, lifting weights for just 25 minutes three times per week led to the gain of nearly two pounds of muscle, and the loss of four pounds of fat" (Shabo). This is another great visual to see that females lifting weights were able to shed off pounds of fat, not even having cardio in their routine. Which that also ties in with my first point that weight lifting helps enhance fat loss faster than just doing cardio every day for hours a day. All of these web sites really allow someone to be able see different reasons why women should start adding weight lifting into their routines. The last point that I want to address is the difference between fat loss and weight loss. This is something that a lot of people probably do not know the difference between nor do they even realize there is a difference. This is something that is really going to change people's views on weight lifting and why they should start adding it into their routines. In general the difference between fat loss and weight loss is one obviously fat loss is clearly fat that you have lost off of your body. Now when someone thinks about weight loss they think of the number that pops up on the scale when they get on it. Obviously people think automatically that if the number, their weight, goes up they have gained weight and if their weight has gone down than they have lost weight; this is not the case at all though. Their weight could easily go up and it can be an increase in muscle rather than fat, which is a good thing. Or their weight could go down on the scale and that may also not mean they have lost fat completely or could even mean possible muscle that they have lost, which they do not want to do because that would give their body more room to store fat. On the website tonygentilcore.com he discusses the difference between weight loss and fat loss and this is also a discussion with a client that he works with. "Far too often  --  at least in my experience, and this may or may not pertain to you  --  women get overly caught up on what the scale tells them. Weight loss can be completely subjective, and the truth of matter is the scale really doesn't tell you anything" (Tony Gentilcore). This is his first response to his client so he really makes sure he gets his point across that the scale means absolutely nothing in terms of actually losing fat. He then goes on to explain to her the difference between muscle and fat in your body. "One pound of muscle weighs the exact same as one pound of fat  --  well, duh!!  --  the difference, however, is that muscle is more dense than fat and takes up less space" (Tony Gentilcore). This is great how he explains this because he really helps you visually see that they may weigh the same but the amount of space they take up is completely different, which then contributes to the changes of the figure of your body. Basically saying that the more muscle someone has on their body, results in having less room for their body to store fat. In a video they discuss the difference between weight loss and fat loss and how you can correctly measure whether or not you have lost fat or not. He explains how you use certain tools and machines to measure your body fat and which ones measure certain parts of your body. He also explains how a scale is not going to show you any type of fat loss at all. He really tried to express how much that he does not like the scale and feels that you should not get on it every day because it will mentally get into your head even if you think it won't, you still will put that in the back of your head every day that you went up in weight or down, which always could be the simple possibility of extra or less water weight. With this being an issue this can result in people not training their body correctly or even properly fueling their body enough because they may think they are gaining weight so they end up not eating enough food, starving themselves, but that is not going to help at all because one the weight they probably have put on is most likely lean muscle mass, and then second they will not be fueling their muscles enough and not getting enough protein, carbs and fats into their body and end up not having enough nutrients. 

Doing more and more research on this topic is crazy because you seem to always find something new every time you look into more information. First with workouts and which one is going to help you burn the most calories and help promote fat loss the fastest. Weight lifting all together is going to enhance your chance of fat loss and allow you to gain lean muscle. It allows you to burn calories during and even hours after workouts which is something you are not able to get just from doing cardio. Now I'm not bashing cardio all together because I do believe you should have a couple days with cardio in it at the end of your workouts to really help boost your metabolism; but would always recommend doing cardio after your weight lifting. Personally after a lot of research myself for myself, I now do cardio three days week, they are every other day and the first and third days are 10 minutes of interval running and the second day is just a full cardio day of 45 mins of interval running which really helps get your heart rate going up and down giving you that extra metabolism boost. Along with all of this I truly do believe that women need to start adding weights into their workouts more often. Even if it is just two or three days a week at a low weight, it is better than nothing at all. It is really going to help you get that extra burn and really help shed off those last extra pounds of fat that are being stubborn. Than wrapping everything up with explaining the difference between fat loss and weight loss is huge now-a-days. A lot of people do not have as much knowledge about that information so it is imperative that individuals become more informed on the difference between fat loss and weight loss. Especially considering a lot of people think that the second they see the scale go up or down they believe they are gaining fat or losing it when that may not be the case at all. Weight lifting and cardio, women and weight lifting, and fat loss differentiating between weight loss are all big topics to discuss and are important in the fitness world, but they can also all be connected to each other in many different ways. If everyone starts to become more aware of how all of these things intertwine and affect their body in a positive way I think more people will one start to care more about their body, health and make it a lifestyle, and two I think it will also help people be more open to other options of working out rather than just always doing one type of workout training every day, which eventually your body and muscles will get used to and recognize the movements and your body will not improve after a while. 

