Is building lean mass the answer to everything?

As mentioned in my last post, it's the time of year that people plan to change their lives and go to the gym. Some want to build lean muscle mass. Others want to lose weight. Some don't really know exactly what they want and they set some sort of ambiguous goal like "get in shape..." whatever that means.

Regardless what the goal is, let's take a look at one common denominator for all of these goals. Building muscle. That may seem counter-intuitive for many people, particularly those in the "lose weight" or "fit into smaller clothes" categories. But allow me a few minutes to explain why I believe that strength training is the best foundation to build pretty much any program, regardless of what your goals might be.

First, if you haven't read my first post on Energy Balance, that's a good place to start. Having an understanding of what Calories are is important for understanding why building muscle will help you better than anything else. The article on Daily Calorie Needs breaks down how many Calories your body actually burns in a day, so check that out for more on that specific topic.

Now that I'm done shamelessly plugging my other articles, let's see what my proposal is, here. As I've written before, you burn a certain amount of Calories each day. There are several factors which contribute to how many Calories you burn. As we have seen, if you burn more Calories than you consume, you lose weight, and vice-versa.

For the moment, we will stick with weight loss, since that seems to be the most common goal people have at this time of year.

Have you ever heard of the Pareto Principle? Also known as the 80-20 rule? Basically, it is the idea that, in general, 80% of the results come from about 20% of the effort. This principle is quite common in business, sports and many other areas of our lives. Based on this principle, many people who want to make the most impact for the least amount of effort will logically focus on that 20% which generates 80% of the results. That is what we are doing here, as well.

For the average person, we can break down how your body burns Calories into about four simple categories. Some of the results may surprise you. For example, of the Calories you burn in a given day, about 20% are from the digestion of your food. Yes....that much. In case any of you are geeky folks like me, the technical term for this is "Thermic Effect of Food" or TEF. (Some may refer to it as "Thermic Effect of Feeding" but it amounts to the same thing.)

Another 10% of your daily Caloric burn comes from (here's another technical term) N.E.A.T., or "Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis." What the heck is that, you say? Simply, that is all the activity you perform throughout the day that is not exercise. It includes things like; talking, typing, drumming your fingers on the desk, walking to your car, picking up your cup of coffee, gesturing with your hands while talking, and a whole bunch of other little things that we don't really think about, but that use energy.

Here is the real shocker for many of you. Any guess on what percentage of your daily Calories are burned by going to the gym for a nice, sweaty, bone-wearying workout? If you are thinking that this only accounts for 10%, you would be correct. All that work accounted for only one out of 10 Calories burned that day. It's almost depressing, isn't it?

So, what burns the other 60% of our Calories? Again, you may be surprised to know....it's staying alive. That's right. All the little systems and processes your body uses to keep itself running at the cellular level, things that would happen if you stayed in bed all day, unconscious and unmoving actually burns 60% of your daily Caloric usage. These activities can include things like; repairing/replacing damaged cell tissue, brain neurons firing, heart beating, lungs breathing, etc.

If that is how much your body burns by doing those sorts of things, wouldn't it make sense to maximize that to get the most out of your effort? I think so, too.

With that little intro / teaser, next week, we will look into how to use this fact to our advantage with strength training. For now, you'll just have to wait on the edge of your seat. (Not really...get up and get moving...remember? I'm a fitness guy. No sitting around eating potato chips and bingeing on Netflix.)