This article could easily be titled “Why Everyone Should Lift Weights” but the focus here is on a negative stigma or misconception when it comes to weight lifting and women. Many women aspire to be thin with little body fat. That is a fair assumption, right? The numbers on the scale are correlated with the size of the body. Another fair assumption, right? So, if the true aspiration is being smaller and leaner, then lifting weights would completely go against the paradigm established, right? Lifting weights is associated with big muscles so the focus needs to be cardio and maybe some yoga here and there.
All of this is far from the golden truth that awaits.
Women aspire to be smaller and leaner, but what if the numbers on the scale did not change too much in the process of achieving this? Would it matter still? Would it matter that you were a few pant sizes down, inches smaller around the waist, but the number on the scale is not where you think it should be? This is where the issues arise. Let go of what you think the scale should say and go by how you look and feel.
Weights are a component to bigger muscles yes, but so is eating a lot of protein and lifting weights in a certain fashion. By simply moving weights around, you are not going to grown into this beast of a woman. Lifting weights, helps out with strength, balance, and most importantly fat loss (yes fat loss). By incorporating a weight lifting routine into your workout, do not think about it as building “bigger” muscles as opposed to “new” muscle. New muscles can be thought of as muscle that has been awaken and strengthened and toned. What is the perk of new muscle? Accelerated fat loss! The more muscle you build the more potential your body possesses to burn fat.
So, new muscle eats old fat.
Eating is very important to how the body responds to lifting weights. If you up your calories and focus a lot on protein and carbs, you will start to notice your muscles getting bigger. So, women, one needs to eat the part to be the part. Want to get big? You need to eat big.
At the end of it all, we all just want to look better and feel better. The numbers of fitness sometimes can blind us to that. The numbers also generate stigmas and misconceptions that in the end can prohibit us to reach our goals of looking and feeling great. Weight lifting is for everyone, especially women and the look that most of them aspire to get.
Last I checked, there is nothing with being strong and beautiful, and in a way you should not aspire to have one without the other.
