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Comment by benabbott | Hacker News Reader

Whenever the topic of weight loss comes up, I always make the same recommendation: Lift weights. Lifting weights increases your muscle mass. Muscle burns calories, even at rest, which raises your TDEE. (A bodybuilder will burn more calories sitting on the couch than someone who doesn't lift weights). For most folks (myself included) cardio sucks. You _could_ jog for an hour every day and burn x-hundred calories due to the increased energy expended... Or you could go lift weights a few times a week, and after a couple months, naturally burn more at rest due to increased muscle mass.

I say this as not a nutritionist nor a doctor, but I don't believe I'm off base here. Feel free to correct me on this if I am.

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I'm a fan of weightlifting, and agree that there are numerous health benefits to doing so, but I think the extra calorie burning is over-hyped. From what I've read you get 6-10 calories per pound of muscle per day, at rest. Not nothing, but for folks who aren't looking to body build I'm not sure it makes much of a difference. Or maybe over a long enough time span it does, I dunno.

Yeah it's not terrible, but having 10 extra pounds of muscle burning almost 100 calories a day extra, thats like a pound of fat every month and a bit.

And that is the same amount as having 10 extra pounds of fat burns.

1kg of muscle tissue burns pretty much identical amount of calories as 1kg of fat tissue. Heart, kidneys, brain etc. tissues burn more than muscles/fat, but you can't really grow those.

Xkg person's basic energy burn rate is the same, regardless of his fat percentage.

Therefore it is definitely a myth to promote weightlifting on the merits of muscles being some kind of great energy expenditure machine.

That's assuming the extra calorie burn doesn't make you feel hungrier and cause you to eat more, even if only a little. 100 calories is a very small amount of extra food.

It does matter over a long enough time span, but otherwise I agree - don't get into resistance training for the extra potential calorie burn/metabolism boost, it's a quick way to burn out. Get into it for the numerous health benefits that resistance training brings, the effects of which get especially important as you get older.

You can lose upwards of 3% of muscle pass per year at 60+, and this process can start as early as 30-35 years old. It gets harder and harder to build muscle as you age too, so the more you can build and maintain early on in your life, the better off you'll be in old age.

Other than aesthetic goals, that's most of what got me into weightlifting. I'd prefer not to be so frail when I'm older and want to maintain my independence as long as possible. Not to mention, being strong just makes general day-to-day tasks easier.

I think there are a couple of underlooked points for weightlifting's contribution to sustainable weight loss.

- the weight that you are gaining with a surplus diet turns into muscle instead of fat. You can take diet breaks and just gain muscle faster which will help when returning to a deficit.

- the increased 100-200 calories from lifting can make a 100 calorie deficit easier to adhere to as it's a smaller proportion of your total.

- weightlifting reduces stress which is a common cause for over eating.

I used to believe this (as did many people) but no longer do. The amount of extra calories burned with a higher muscle mass is just not significant enough to make this a relevant idea.

Of course, there are many, many other reasons to lift weights. Health and longevity aside, the reason most people want to lose weight is to look better - so what they should really aim for isn't to lose weight, it's to lose fat and increase muscle mass. For that, you need both a caloric deficit and weight lifting.

This is true, but I don't think the extra calorie burn via extra muscle mass is dramatic enough to move the needle that much. Studies are a bit weak here, but a quick search suggests that a pound of muscle mass burns between 4.5 and 7 calories per day. That's... not that much. A bodybuilder that's putting on competition-worthy levels of muscle mass is going to be spending several hours every single day at the gym lifting weights, and very few people are going to sign up for that just for the hope of losing some weight.

I've been doing some strength training (arms, legs, core) for the past year and a half. Nothing too heavy, but enough that I can see nice muscle-tone changes in my body, and I notice that day-to-day physical tasks are easier. At most, I've put on about 10lbs of muscle (and honestly it's probably more like half that). So I'm burning another 45 to 70 calories per day. That's like... 4 to 7 plain potato chips of calories.

So lift if you want to look good, be generally stronger (core strength is especially good for you!), or just feel healthier. And sure, the act of lifting those weights will burn calories that you weren't otherwise burning. But the muscle mass you gain isn't going to burn a useful amount of extra calories per day.

And yes, cardio does suck! Unfortunately, doing only strength training is leaving out really important parts of your body that need to be strong and healthy: your heart and lungs. I'm in decent physical shape, but if I stop working on cardio even for a month or so, walking up the four flights of stairs in my condo building leaves me a little winded, and I don't like that feeling.

I guess my point is: do cardio and strength training to increase your general level of health and fitness. But if you want to lose weight, change your diet. Change it sustainably and permanently. If you just change it until you get to your target weight, you're going to put those pounds right back on afterward.

The weight lifting also triggers stronger hormonal responses due to the additional mechanical loading. Mechanoreceptors in your body will stimulate a chain reaction by way of the hypothalamus (HPG axis) that ultimately causes a ramp in testosterone and other hormones. Your body effectively has a built-in steroid dispenser that you can control.

The scale is really dramatic in my experience. The more the lifting sucks, the more your body will compensate. This trend can be non-linear for a good period of time before you begin to plateau. The tricky bit is not pushing too far and injuring yourself early on.

One interesting hybrid is running or walking with a weighted vest on. This requires some extra precautions - the vest should be very, very snug on your body. You don't want it slinging around and imposing weird lateral loads.

Or do both! I primarily train Muay Thai these days, but I mix in two minimalist kettlebell strength sessions per week. 20 minutes of emom double kettlebell ABCs with some sets of pull-ups at the end keeps me in zone 3-4. So I'm getting some cardio conditioning while doing my strength training. Sure, it's hard to overload at a certain point with kettlebells, but making a goal to be able to OHP double 24kg bells will get most people pretty far.

There are other advantages beyond just burning calories. Lean muscle tissue acts as glucose sink. When you eat you'll have more reserve capacity to store that energy temporarily in your muscles rather than triggering growth of adipose tissue.

I think you'd still need to adjust your diet signifiantly. Most powerlifters don't look particularly in shape.

Most powerlifters intentionally maintain a signficant caloric surplus in order to bulk up. Some bulkers even chug straight-up olive oil to meet their daily caloric goals.

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