My first work boostmetabolism-1 (1) | Page 19

The old perception was that muscle building leads to muscle bulking, and before long, gorging forearm veins and other unwanted results. This is, frankly, not the case. Provided that women aren’t supporting their workouts with specific muscle-building supplements, there is no need to be concerned; because building lean muscle won’t make them bulk up. Still, however, the question remains: why would women (and, of course, men) who want to boost their metabolism focus on muscle building? Isn’t cardiovascular exercising the only thing that matters? Again, the answer is: No! In addition to a healthy and responsible cardiovascular program, muscle building is an exceptionally powerful way to boost metabolism. How? Because a pound of muscle burns more calories than a pound of fat. And what does this mean? It means (and get ready to stare in awe) that if you have more muscle on your body – anywhere on your body – you will simply burn more calories as a result. You don’t even have to do anything. You’ll simply burn more calories, because muscle simply requires more of an energy investment. Of course, as you can infer, if you build muscle and then leave it alone, over time, the muscle fibers will weaken and you’ll lose that wonderful calorie-burning factory. But that’s no problem, because all you need to do is build and maintain healthy muscle.