Lean muscle mass is not a glamorous topic in fitness. Shake recipes, juicing, interval training, weight loss gurus – almost any other topic might have more appeal than discussing lean muscle mass.
Keeping lean muscle mass, building it, and trying to lose weight while maintaining muscle are important things to educate yourself on in your quest for health and fitness.
Let’s break down how the amount of lean mass you have, develop, or lose can affect your fitness journey.
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You can improve your health, well-being and physique by taking steps to build or maintain lean muscle mass.
You’ll enjoy being able to eat more, lose weight at an improved rate, and be a stronger healthier person by building and maintaining lean muscle mass during your weight loss journey.
Better Body Composition
Building lean body mass as part of an exercise program is one way to improve body composition. The more lean body mass that you have the better your resting metabolic rate will be.
A person with increased muscle mass from strength training may burn more calories at rest than an untrained person. You’ll be able to eat more without gaining weight, or you may be able to lose more weight at a faster rate than a person with less muscle mass. An improved physique is also the result of increased muscle mass.
Increased Bone Density
As people age, they often want to avoid osteoporosis or brittle and weak bones. Building and maintaining lean body mass can help prevent these effects.
According to a study, “Low skeletal muscle mass is associated with poor structural parameters of bone and impaired balance in elderly men. Decreased relative skeletal muscle mass index was associated with narrower bones, thinner cortices, and a consequent decreased bending strength (lower section modulus), as well as with impaired balance and an increased risk of falls.”
This means that strength training or exercise to build or maintain muscle mass may have long-term health effects. Preventing degradation of the quality of bones and maintaining overall strength may help with mobility and strength as you age.
Decrease In Insulin Resistance
Increasing your lean body mass may also help you avoid metabolic syndrome and reduce the effects of insulin resistance. According to a study, “Improvement of insulin resistance in female obese patients requires maintenance of skeletal muscle mass.” Decreasing insulin resistance aids in weight loss and also helps prevent adult-onset diabetes.
This means avoiding a health condition that requires medication and also being able to better regulate blood sugar levels in the body. This factor is related to the fact that increased lean body mass leads to improved resting metabolic rate and greater ease at maintaining a calorie deficit during weight loss.
Use It Or Lose It
If you’re dieting and training there are certain steps you can take to retain lean muscle while losing weight. Here are some tips to reduce muscle loss when training and eating in a calorie deficit:
- Get plenty of lean protein with meals (approx. 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram)
- Rest & recover. Make sure to get plenty of sleep and take rest days.
- Hydrate
- Supplement with BCAA’s (branched-chain amino acids) or protein powder if needed to reach your protein goal and aid in recovery.
- Keep strength training even when trying to lose fat
- Consider circuit or high-intensity interval training that incorporates strength exercise with cardio.
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Strength training is an important part of any regular workout routine. It’s an umbrella term for the types of exercises we do which incorporate weights and resistance. This enables the body to build its strength and get toned but not bulky.
Many women try to tone muscle but they often end up making a variety of mistakes that make the job of muscle toning much harder than it needs to be. Download my free report, 10 Muscle Toning Mistakes Women Make to help you get the results you want.
