Don’t be afraid to lift heavy weight in the gym.  Most of the time, people (women in particular) are weary of lifting heavy weights. They think they will wake up the next day only to look in the mirror and say OMG!  I Look like the

Not even close!  For that to happen you would have to actually add in more calories than you’re burning off and even then you won’t actually look like the hulk.  You will have to be caught in the heart of a gamma bomb or is it nuclear?  Anyway you get the point… chances are you will look more like his cousin:

without the color.

It is important to maintain your muscle mass so that your resting metabolic rate (the rate your body burns calories  when you’re doing nothing)  doesn’t go down.

More reasons to go heavy

• Tones and shapes the body better than lifting light weights with high amount of repetition
• Has a higher impact on your metabolism than lifting light weights with high reps (increases metabolism)
• Because Dieting doesn’t only make you lose fat but muscle as well, when you lift heavy you prevent this from happening. Its a survival mechanism because your body knows your muscles are being used so it has to preserve your muscles
• Prevents muscle wasting that comes from doing a lot of cardio.  Doing a lot of steady state cardio (non sprinting type)  actually wastes the large muscle fiber type 2b (good if you want to look toned) .  When you lift heavy, you are  telling  your body to preserve these muscle fibers (the largest in your body).  This equates to higher resting metabolism and a shapely bod =)
• You use a lot more of the calories you eat because you have more micro tears on your muscles.  The body will use the majority of the calories you  eat to aid in the recovery process because of these micro tears. This means less of chance of storing any as fat.

Its estimated that 1 pound of muscle burns between 6-10 calories per day so don’t lose what you already have when you diet!

I can hear  it now but how do I know if I’m lifting heavy?

The most amount of reps you should do with the weight you use is between 6-8 reps. I’m an advocate of 5 reps for 5 sets myself because of the results I have seen with different people (myself included).

If you are going with 8 reps then the sets would be lower —4.  If you are going with 6, the sets should vary between 4 or 5 sets.

Now this doesn’t mean forgo lifting light weights ,  It means lift heavy or medium weights more so than you would lifting light weights