#56: Lifting Weights for Fat Loss

Hey Friends,

Last week I talked about running. Running is fantastic for your heart health and can be an awesome way to relieve stress.

But I made the point that if fat loss is your primary goal, having running as the main focus of your workout routine probably isn’t the best way to get there.

This week I’ll touch on why I believe strength training is the best method for long term, sustained fat loss.

Weekly Action Point

Spend 5-10 minutes this week thinking about your fitness goals and write down three goals that you have for the last 4 months of 2025.

Step 1 of this exercise: I want you to think back to your New Year’s resolution or any fitness goals you might have had earlier in the year.

Reflect on those goals for a minute.

How are they going?

Do you feel you’ve moved in a positive direction since the beginning of the year?

Is there anything you told yourself you were going to do but didn’t?

What things have stood in your way of achieving the things you wanted to?

After having thought about these questions a bit, write down 3 goals that you have for the remainder of 2025.

I believe that goals are always changing based on the things going on in our lives. It’s useful to stop and think about what you are trying to achieve occasionally, and it’s definitely a reflection that should happen more often than once a year when thinking about a New Year’s Resolution.

Losing fat by lifting weights

I’ve been doing this newsletter for a little over a year, and this definitely isn’t the first time (or the last) that I am advocating for the importance of lifting weights.

I’ve talked about lifting weights in many different contexts, but this week I’m focused specifically on how lifting weights can be beneficial for losing fat.

The first thing I want to call attention to: I’m talking about losing fat, not just losing weight. The weight on the scale really doesn’t tell us much, especially when talking about lifting weights and our body composition.

You could be losing fat, getting stronger, and seeing the number on the scale actually go up because of the muscle tissue you are building.

I did a newsletter on why I don’t think the number on the scale is useful (see it here), so this week, I’m specifically talking about why I think weight training is awesome for fat loss.

So with that in mind, here are a couple ways that lifting weights will help you lose fat:

#1: Muscle is more metabolically active

Muscle tissue burns more calories than fat, even when you are at rest. So if you have more muscle, your body will be burning more calories even when you are sitting on the couch watching TV.

This makes it easier to lose fat because you are able to eat more food and not feel like you are starving while being in a caloric deficit.

Generally speaking, it will be easier to lose fat if you are able to eat more and don’t real like you are restricting yourself a ton.

#2: Weight training protects muscle when in a caloric deficit

When people cut calories, they very commonly will see the number on the scale go down.

Without weight training (and adequate protein intake, but that’s a separate conversation), most of the weight they are losing actually comes from muscle loss, not fat loss.

Muscle is more metabolically active, and as such when you reduce calories, your body says “hey I’m not eating enough to sustain this muscle, so let’s get rid of it”.

However, when you’re lifting weights, you send the signal to your body that the muscle is actually needed, even though it may be calorically expensive to keep.

The result? You keep the muscle while losing the fat - giving you the leaner, toned look that many people desire.

#3: Sustained progress over the long term

If running is your primary method for losing fat, you eventually will plateau. Basically in order to continuously lose weight, you’d have to continue running further and faster.

Which you absolutely can do up to a certain point, but beyond that it isn’t feasible to just always be increasing how far you are running. You’ll increase your risk of injury if you endlessly run farther.

As soon as you stop running, the benefits disappear. Weight training on the other hand, changes your body composition. It’s slower to build muscle, but the results are much longer lasting and easier to maintain in the long term.

#4: Improved insulin sensitivity

Lifting weights actually helps your muscles use carbs more efficiently.

With better insulin sensitivity (the opposite of type 2 diabetes, which is insulin resistance), your body is better able to utilize your carbs for energy and recovery and is less likely to store them as fat.

#5: Improved hormone profile

Outside of Insulin (which is a hormone), lifting weights generally will positively impact other hormones in the body.

It can help your body regulate levels of hormones such as cortisol, adrenaline, and growth hormone. Strength training can also be helpful in regulating the menstrual cycle, one reason that weight training is especially important for women.

Having a healthy hormonal profile will make fat loss and body recomposition easier.

#6: Weight training burns calories

This one probably sounds obvious, but let me explain why I included it.

In terms of fat loss, the main thing running does is burn calories.

Weight training also burns calories. But with weight training, you build muscle, get stronger, and burn calories all at the same time.

Most people don’t just have tons of free time laying around. They have jobs, family, kids, hobbies, friends, etc.

Lifting weights gives you a better bang for your buck with your time investment.

The big thing I want you to take away from this: lifting weights is awesome for you.

The point of this wasn’t to crap on running. As I mentioned last week, running is an awesome activity that I think should be included in any fitness routine.

I just am hoping to frame your perspective a bit around how running vs weight training can play a role in your fat loss.

I’m talking about this because it’s something that I hear people confused about ALL the time in the fitness space.

ChatGPT tells me that around 60% of American adults have attempted some sort of weight loss in the last year, and only around 20% of them succeeded.

ChatGPT would never lie to me… but whether those numbers are accurate or not isn’t the point.

The point is: a lot of people try to lose weight (fat) and don’t succeed. I’m confident that placing strength training as the focus of a fat loss regimen would increase the success rating.

Ben’s Best

Frankly, it doesn’t matter if you are strength training or not if you aren’t also focused on what you are eating. Here is a 20 min Youtube video that I enjoyed this week where she talks about some tips for prepping healthy, delicious food.