7 Reasons Why You Want to Have More Muscle
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Are you AFRAID of building muscle? I know so many of you are, yet you want to lose weight and change your body. NEWSFLASH: The best way to build the body you want is through building more muscle. Want another newsflash? Cardio DOES NOT build muscle, and overdoing cardio actually contributes to the breakdown of muscle. Don't believe me? In this episode of Embrace Your Real, I share 7 reasons why having muscle is so important.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Hey there, beautiful human. You're listening to Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter, a podcast where I empower you to just be you. With each episode, I dish you a dose of real talk and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to Embrace Your Real. Let's get it, let's go.
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Embrace Your Real podcast. I feel honored and grateful that you are here spending some time with me today. Today, we're chatting about muscle. I know so many of you are afraid of building muscle, yet you want to lose weight or you want to change your body. I'm here to give you a news flash that the best way to build the body that you want is through building more muscle. Cardio does not typically build muscle and actually overdoing cardio can contribute to the breakdown of muscle. And when you're not building muscle, you're going to continue to struggle to build the body that you want, plain and simple. So in this episode of Embrace Your Real, I'm going to share seven reasons why having muscle is so important. But before I do, I had to share this review of the day comes from Keeka25.
She says, "Amazing woman. Wow, just wow. Every single episode is seriously gold. Julie is so knowledgeable and so real. I've been following Julie since September and my mindset has changed so much about myself, fitness and nutrition, and life in general. Embrace Your Real because you're worth it, gives me goosebumps every single time." Thank you so much. I love this so incredibly much. I want to challenge you guys listening right now. If you haven't already left a review or maybe you have, I want to know when you started listening. Maybe what month? So she started listening in September, so during lockdown. Or are you an OG? Have you been listening since episode one? I would love to know. So be sure to rate and review, you can go over to Apple Podcasts. It is a free podcast app on every single Apple device. So whether you have an iPhone, you have an iPad, you have a MacBook, you can type into the podcast app, Embrace Your Real, click that rate and review, and also be sure to subscribe so that you never miss an episode on Monday and Thursday.
All right. Let's dive in to the seven reasons why having muscle is so important. Number one, more muscle can increase your resting metabolic rate. Okay. I know you're probably thinking, Julie, what the heck is my resting metabolic rate? This is actually the amount of calories that you burn just breathing. For example, this is the amount of calories that you would burn if you laid in bed all day without actively moving a single muscle. So essentially, this is the amount of calories that your body needs just to carry out essential functioning. And this number, your resting metabolic rate is directly correlated with how much muscle you have. For example, each pound of muscle burns about six calories, whereas each pound of fat burns only about two calories. Now I know that might not sound like a big deal, but over time, this can and will make a big difference. So essentially the more muscle that you have, the more calories your body needs for basic function, which means the more calories you burn outside of your workouts around the clock.
The average amount of calories that a woman burns for basic functioning is anywhere from 1200 to 1400 calories daily. But if you gain more muscle, you could ramp up that calorie burn to 17 to 1800 or even more depending on how much muscle you build, which leads me to number two, having more muscle can help with weight management. Since having more muscle means you can have a faster for lack of a better term metabolism, this means that you could lose weight faster by focusing on muscle gain through resistance training than you would by doing cardio alone. So, roughly 30 to 50% of our daily calorie burn comes from daily movement and exercise. So, what about the remaining 50 to 70%? This actually comes from your resting metabolic rate. Sure, doing extra cardio might allow you to burn more calories in the moment, but around the clock, it won't. And that's what matters most as it contributes to the majority of your daily calorie burn. In fact, studies have shown that resistance training can keep your metabolism elevated for up to 48 hours after you finish your workout.
Number three, more muscle can mean more fat loss. Fun fact, building muscle actually triggers your body to make both physical and metabolic adaptations that actually protect your body against gaining more body fat. How so is this? It actually gets really technical at this level, but one thing building more muscle does is gives the carbs you eat, again for lack of a better term, a place to go to be burned for energy instead of storing it as fat. So the more muscle that you build, the more your body processes food and calories differently, which can make it less likely that what you're eating will be stored as fat.
Number four, more muscle can reduce body fat. Now, I know so many women who do cardio on top of cardio on top of cardio and don't understand why they can't seem to reduce their body fat. They're working out regularly. They're nourishing their bodies and they just can't seem to get rid of this additional body fat. It's super interesting because in a 2014 study, Harvard researchers followed 10,500 men over the course of 12 years. And they found that strain training is more effective at preventing increases in abdominal fat than cardiovascular exercise, which is crazy. So essentially when people incorporate strain training into their weekly workouts, not only are they burning calories, they're also increasing their lean muscle. And the more lean muscle mass that you have, the less body fat that you'll have as well.
Number five, this kind of goes along with number four, but it changes your body composition. So when I say changes your body composition, one thing I need to make extremely clear is that it will not make you more bulky. That is a huge myth that so many women have and this was me as well, because here's the truth. More muscle will not make you look bulky. It will actually make you appear leaner. The only way to get bulky when weightlifting is to eat way more calories than your body needs, [AKB 00:06:20] and a caloric surplus for an extended period of time. It's almost though impossible to bulk up unless you are doing it intentionally because it again takes a big caloric surplus to do so. So yes, there are many female bodybuilders with a significant amount of muscle mass, but this was their intention.
So unless you eat in a caloric surplus, like I had mentioned for a prolonged period of time, becoming bulky is not something that you should worry about. So if you're nourishing your body with what it needs, it literally is impossible to build bulky looking muscles for lack of a better term. In fact, it will make you appear to look leaner and smaller, not bigger. Plus to get bulky, you need a certain amount of testosterone and women typically don't naturally produce enough testosterone to do so. So moral of the story, if you want to change your body composition, I encourage you to hop off the treadmill and start picking up some weights because real talk, doing all the cardio in the world, still isn't going to give you more defined arms or more toned glutes.
Number six, when you feel physically stronger, you feel mentally stronger as well. I will attest to this, that building more muscle doesn't just give you physical benefits. It actually gives you cognitive benefits as well. Countless studies have shown that building more muscle can improve your mood and lower depression. It makes you feel more confident in your body and in yourself. And it can give you more energy. It makes your mind more sharp and the list goes on and on. And number seven, more muscle improves your overall health. It can control your blood sugar levels, which can reduce the risk of cancer. It can improve your flexibility and mobility, which helps lower the risk of injury. It supports your joints and bone health.
And some studies have shown, it can also potentially give you a longer lifespan by reducing the risk of all sorts of common age-related chronic diseases, more so than cardio. And I want to make this very clear that I am not against cardio. I am specifically talking though about how and why it's so important to build muscle from resistance training. I personally do cardio a few times a week just for my cardio vascular health. But if you are wanting to build more muscle and you are wanting to start building the body that you've always dreamt of, I would encourage you to start picking up some weights because for a decade plus in my life, I thought that the only way to build my body was through cardio. And I wasn't understanding why I wasn't building muscle. And it was because I was not effective in my training.
So now that you've heard seven reasons why you want to have more muscle and knowing that you build muscle through resistance training, you might be asking yourself, how do I build more muscle? Or what program should I use? I want to introduce you to the Movement With Julie app. If you've never heard of it before, each week I give you five brand new workouts carefully programmed to ensure that you are working every single muscle from head to toe. And literally, all you have to do is follow it. I give you video demonstrations for every single exercise so that you can feel a 100% competent in performing the workouts. And all of the workouts only require about 30 to 45 minutes of your time, your body weight, a pair or two of dumbbells, and a small space inside your house.
Seriously though, it's crazy. Really you only need to give up 30 minutes, three to five times a week to gain the benefits of everything that I just chatted about in this episode. If you want to gain instant access, you can actually go to movementwithjulie.com and you can now get your first seven days completely free. I will leave it in the show notes. But if you want to try out the app, you want to try out the workouts, you want to join the amazing community for accountability and support, I'm telling you this community is unlike any community I've ever been a part of and it is so inspiring and motivating to be a part of it. Just knowing that there's women all across the world who are all on this journey of building more muscle, of building the body that they've always dreamt of having and just feeling more confident in their body and having more energy and reaping all of the benefits from building more muscle.
Okay. So, let me recap why you want more muscle. Number one, more muscle can increase your resting metabolic rate. Number two, having more muscle can help with weight management. Number three, more muscle can mean more fat loss. Number four, more muscle can actually reduce your body fat. Number five, more muscle can change your body composition. Number six, when you feel physically stronger, you feel mentally stronger as well. And number seven, more muscle can improve your overall health. Again, I don't want you to miss out on getting the seven days free inside my Movement With Julie workout app. So, be sure to head over to www.movementwithjulie.com and start building that muscle. I will also leave that link in the show notes.
If you have a girl friend or two or someone in your life that you feel like would really benefit from this episode, I just ask that you share it out with them. These are things that I wish I would have known. I feel like if I would've known all of the benefits of building more muscle and how to build more muscle through weight training, resistance training, I feel like I would've saved myself a good five or six years. But that is the reason why I have this podcast, because I want to hopefully save you some time and stress by giving you the tools and empowering and educating you on things that I wish I would have learned sooner. Thank you so much for tuning in. And I'll talk to you in the next episode.
All right, sister. That's all I got for you today, but I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you're not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so, juliealedbetter. Yes, it's with an "a" in the middle for that daily post-workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world. And I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So, go out there and Embrace Your Real because you're worth it.