If you're aiming to gain muscle and lose fat simultaneously, strength training is an excellent starting point. Understanding how strength training supports both these goals is key to achieving the physique you desire. This article delves into the benefits of F45 training for weight loss, incorporating insights on nutrition, recovery, and the role of GLP-1 medications.
Understanding the Fundamentals of Weight Loss
Fat loss occurs when your body expends more energy than it consumes, creating a calorie deficit. To compensate for this deficit, your body taps into its fat stores for energy. However, working with a large calorie deficit is generally not recommended.
The Synergy of Strength Training and Weight Loss
Strength training and weight loss are interconnected. Muscle tissue requires more energy to maintain itself, resulting in increased calorie burning even during rest. Pairing your training with balanced nutrition fuels recovery, supports muscle growth, and enhances calorie burning efficiency.
Finding the Right Balance
The key to losing fat and gaining muscle lies in striking the right balance between training, nutrition, recovery, and consistency. Each of these elements plays a crucial role in achieving sustainable results.
The Role of Protein in Muscle Building and Fat Loss
Protein is vital for both building muscle and supporting fat loss. It aids in repairing and growing muscle tissue post-workouts, promotes prolonged satiety, and supports a healthy metabolism.
Read also: Comprehensive Weight Loss Guide
Incorporating Protein into Your Diet
Aim to include a quality protein source in every meal, such as lean meats, fish, eggs, tofu, legumes, or high-protein dairy. Meal prepping can simplify this process, ensuring consistency and preventing last-minute unhealthy food choices.
Resistance Training: The Cornerstone of Muscle Gain and Fat Loss
If you're wondering, "Can gaining muscle make you lose fat?", the answer is a resounding yes. Resistance training ties everything together. Lifting weights, whether heavy or light, challenges your muscles to grow and increases energy expenditure during and after workouts. Over time, this leads to a more toned and defined physique.
Optimizing Recovery: Sleep and Hydration
Adequate sleep and hydration enhance the benefits of your training efforts. Sleep allows your body to recover, rebuild muscle, and balance hormones that affect fat storage and appetite. Simple sleep habits, such as maintaining a consistent bedtime and reducing screen time before bed, can make a significant difference. Hydration supports digestion, energy levels, and muscle function, all essential for high-intensity workouts.
Consistency and Patience: The Keys to Lasting Results
Real change requires consistency and patience. Results from strength training and weight loss don't happen overnight, and that's a positive aspect. Trust the process, remain committed to your training, and nourish your body well. Progress may seem gradual, but consistent effort yields results. Strength training provides the tools to lose fat and gain muscle sustainably, with tangible performance benefits.
F45 Training: A Comprehensive Approach to Fitness
F45 Training offers a comprehensive approach to fitness that aligns well with the needs of individuals using GLP-1 medications. Each 45-minute class alternates between cardio-focused days and strength and resistance training days, providing a well-rounded functional workout. This combination not only aids in building and maintaining lean muscle mass but also boosts metabolism.
Read also: Comprehensive Guide to Maya Abdominal Massage
GLP-1 Medications and the Importance of Resistance Training
GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy are increasingly used for weight management and diabetes. However, optimal results require more than just medication. Resistance training and proper nutrition are essential for preserving muscle mass and ensuring long-term health.
How GLP-1 Medications Work
These medications suppress appetite, slow gastric emptying, and enhance insulin sensitivity, leading to significant weight reduction.
Preserving Muscle Mass with Resistance Training
Incorporating resistance training is crucial when using GLP-1 medications. Strength exercises help preserve and build muscle mass, which is vital for maintaining metabolic rate and overall health.
The F45 Community: Motivation and Accountability
The community-oriented environment at F45 fosters motivation and accountability, which can be particularly beneficial for those navigating the challenges of weight loss and muscle preservation associated with GLP-1 use. The supportive atmosphere is what people keep coming back to at F45.
The Importance of Adequate Protein Intake with GLP-1 Receptors
Incorporating adequate protein into your diet is essential when using GLP-1 receptors. These medications, prescribed for type 2 diabetes and weight management, can suppress appetite and slow gastric emptying, potentially leading to muscle mass loss.
Read also: Fuel your body for peak performance in your next triathlon.
Benefits of a High-Protein Diet
A high-protein diet can enhance the effectiveness of GLP-1 medications by promoting satiety and stabilizing blood sugar levels. Protein-rich foods stimulate the release of hormones such as GLP-1, which help you feel full and satisfied. Additionally, protein has been shown to increase the production of hormones like PYY and GLP-1, both of which help you feel full and satisfied.
Protein Sources
To meet protein needs, consider incorporating lean meats, fish, eggs, dairy products, legumes, and plant-based protein sources into your meals. For those with reduced appetite, protein shakes or supplements can be convenient options to ensure adequate intake.
The ‘Shed It’ Program by Dr. B and F45
To address this gap, F45 has partnered with Dr. B to introduce a holistic weight loss program designed for current and prospective GLP-1 users who are interested in incorporating an effective fitness and nutrition regimen into their weight loss journey. The ‘Shed It’ program by Dr.B in collaboration with F45, offers a holistic approach to weight loss by combining the efficacy of GLP-1 medications with the critical benefits of resistance training and nutritional support from F45 Training.
The Importance of Eating Enough
When starting a weight loss management plan, your first instinct may be to eat less - and in some situations, this can work. When you fuel your body with enough macronutrients - such as protein, carbs and healthy fats - you build more lean muscle and burn more energy, resulting in gradual and sustained weight loss. Eating more supports your lean muscle and metabolism so you can perform at your best. By eating enough food, you activate your metabolism: which gives your body what it needs to train harder, recover faster, and torch those calories.
Maximizing Training Through Recovery and Nutrition
Training is where you put the work in, but it’s during recovery when your body develops. Every time you smash a cardio workout, your body uses your glycogen stores to give you quick energy. Here, carbs are your best friend. By eating more, you keep your energy steady, your hunger in check, and your mindset strong.
The Consequences of Undereating
When you don’t eat enough during the day, your body looks for a quick fix later. When you give your body the right nutrients in the right amounts, you boost your physical energy and mental focus.
Signs You May Not Be Eating Enough
- If you’re always craving your next meal, you’re either not eating enough or need to change up the food you’re eating.
- You need a steady stream of nutrients to maintain energy throughout the day, especially if you’re training.
- Eating more to lose weight benefits more than lean muscle - it feeds your brain and stabilizes your hormones³.
- If you run out of steam fast during workouts, a lack of proper pre- and post-workout nutrition could be the reason.
- When you under-eat, it can affect your brain and nervous system - making you feel dizzy, weak, and even nauseous5.
The Role of Organization in Weight Loss
Weight loss is partly discipline - but it’s mostly about organization.
Tips for Meal Prepping and Balanced Nutrition
- To meal prep for the week, focus on prepping a mix of protein, complex carbs, and healthy fats.
- A balanced diet is key in supporting your training and weight loss goals. Aim for a mix of macro and micronutrients to support your body on multiple fronts.
- If you want to eat more, you’ll also need to drink more. Staying hydrated supports digestion, helps your body absorb nutrients more efficiently, and can even reduce bloating.
By eating more to lose weight, you nourish your body - and fire up your results.
Long-Term Weight Loss Management
Weight loss has always been a hotly debated topic, but when it comes to keeping the weight off, it’s important to establish a weight loss management plan that you can sustain. This includes a combination of a healthy, nutrient-rich diet and consistent physical exercise.
The Importance of Realistic Goals
Overcommitting and setting unrealistic goals isn’t conducive to weight management longevity. Instead, it’s the small but achievable lifestyle changes that will provide a foundation for long-term success in both weight loss and weight maintenance.
Weight Loss vs. Weight Maintenance
Weight loss management focuses not only on the short-term goal of weight loss, but rewiring your habits and making incremental changes to your lifestyle so that you avoid regaining weight in the long-term. We can split weight loss management into two stages: weight loss and weight maintenance. To understand these phases, we’ll first need to look at the ways our body expends energy. For effective weight loss, your energy expenditure needs to be higher than your energy intake (the food you consume)3 - this is commonly referred to as a ‘calorie deficit’.
A Holistic Approach to Weight Loss
Approaching your weight loss from a holistic standpoint by combining diet, exercise and manageable lifestyle changes is more likely to yield positive, long-term results. While diet accounts for a large percentage of weight loss5, weight regain is less likely to occur when combined with a consistent, sustainable workout routine.6 There are so many health benefits to physical exercise outside of weight loss, including strengthening and toning muscles, better aerobic and anerobic fitness, improved sleep and mood and safeguarding your body against injury.7
The Impact of Rapid Weight Loss
It’s important to remember that when you experience rapid weight loss, either through crash dieting or weight loss medication, you lose both fat and muscle. Behavior and lifestyle modifications are the key to weight loss maintenance. We recommend entering into your plan with clear, realistic objectives, while remembering to be kind to yourself if or when you deviate.
Tools for Weight Management Longevity
A healthy diet and a mixture of high and low-intensity exercise will be your tools for weight management longevity. For adults aged 18 to 64, it is recommended that you perform 2.5 to 5 accumulated hours of moderate physical activity per week or 1.25 to 2.5 accumulated hours of high-intensity physical activity per week (or an equivalent combination of both).9 Ideally, this should also be spread over the course of the week to minimise sedentary time. For some, this may feel difficult to achieve, which is where the community and qualified instructors at F45 step in.
The Role of Strength Training in Weight Loss Management
Like we touched on before, strength training is an essential component of any weight loss management plan, and you should aim to perform strength training exercises at least 2 days per week.10 F45 resistance workouts are designed to help you build lean muscle mass to mitigate muscle loss caused by rapid weight loss. This increased muscle also protects your bones and joints from injury, which is particularly beneficial as we age.
Avoiding Bad Diet Habits
Bad diet habits, such as fad dieting and elimination of food groups, are generally not sustainable long-term. While a reduced intake of sugar, saturated fats and alcohol will be beneficial to your overall health, cutting out food groups completely can present challenges later when they are re-introduced into your diet. Using a ‘reward’ system or adopting negative words like ‘cheat’ can demonise certain foods and trigger an unhealthy cycle. Instead, we recommend that you eat a balanced diet of high-fibre, nutrient-dense foods and minimise the consumption of processed foods.
The Benefits of Physical Activity
Participating in any form of physical activity can assist in weight loss. An increase in heart rate means that you are burning more calories throughout the day, often assisting in putting you in a calorie deficit.
Cardio vs. Resistance Training
Steady cardio is a form of exercise that can assist with weight loss. Examples of cardio could be running or walking, these forms of exercise usually will stay at the same constant pace. Resistance training is commonly known to play an important role in increasing muscle mass and strength, however extensive research has also shown that resistance training influences other health-related benefits, including fat loss. Resistance training can assist in reductions in fat mass through an increase in lean tissue mass and basal metabolic rate. Essentially this means that your total daily energy expenditure can be higher in response to Resistance training.
Compound Movements
Adding compound movements to your strength training can be effective in assisting your weight loss goals. A compound movement is a multi-joint exercise that is designed to target multiple muscle groups at one time. Whilst HIIT Training and Strength workouts workouts are proven to be effective in reducing body fat, at the end of the day the workout that is best for fat loss and maintaining a healthy waistline is always going to be a training style that you enjoy and can maintain enough motivation to be consistent. The best way to keep motivated is to enjoy what you are doing. If you struggle to be disciplined with your exercise schedule, a great way to stay motivated could be to take part in a group fitness class with a supportive community. TEAM TRAINING.
Personal Experience with the F45 Challenge
The 45 Day Challenge is designed to provide you with the core knowledge and application of a sustainable healthy lifestyle while improving your overall health and wellness. The F45 community is here to support you over this 45-day journey, so get excited about setting personalised goals, building connections, and discovering your capacity through this fitness & wellness transformation.
What to Look Forward To
Functional training from world-class trainers, daily customised meal plans with auto-generated shopping lists, macro-balanced recipes including mainstream, vegan and vegetarian options, fitness tracking, progress monitoring and nutrition guidance.
What is the F45 8-Week Challenge?
F45 Challenges are comprehensive training and nutrition programs that you can approach as ferociously or casually as you wish. They used to be two, six or eight weeks long - I did six weeks - but now they are 45 days long. At the time of my Challenge, signing up gets you unlimited classes at the gym and access to the Challenge app, which has free home workouts and thousands of healthy recipes.
Body Composition Analysis
The Challenge is book-ended by getting two InBody scans, which measure your progress in several body composition markers such as BMI, skeletal muscle mass, and hydration levels. You also get the added benefit of community encouragement - F45 gyms around the world are on the same schedule, so you’re all in this together.
Functional Fitness
The 'F' in F45 stands for 'functional fitness', meaning movements that support you in your daily life. And the “45” is for 45 minutes, the length of the weekday classes. Saturday and Sunday classes are an hour. Sessions involve uber-fast-paced HIIT and circuits, alternating between cardio and strength days.
Tailoring Your Approach
You can tailor your approach: on the hard-core, more intimidating end, my trainer says that someone in great health and peak fitness might cut booze entirely, train five days a week, follow the meal plan, and calorie-count for the most dramatic results. But on the gentler end of the spectrum, some folks are just looking to gradually reintroduce healthy habits in an uplifting community space, and get moving again. Both approaches are welcome, and besides, it can be dangerous to try to do too much, too fast.
What are F45 Classes Like?
F45 is hard, especially if you’re new. But hard in a satisfying way, and not impossible. There’s a reason it’s so popular. Classes are full of different body types and fitness levels. Trainers are super friendly, and they’ll happily provide a modification if you need one, or just let you get on with it.
Variety in Training
Every day I walk into the gym, the floor is laid out with entirely different equipment: battle ropes, stationary bikes, sled pushes, kettlebells, step boxes, balance balls. At every class, all exercises are explained and demonstrated before a brief warmup. Training is always different - they mix and match a staggering 5,000 different exercises into 45 classes, so you will never be bored. And you’re typically only doing an exercise for less than a minute, so if you hate it or just can’t do it, you’ll be on to the next in a flash.
Weekly Lineup
This is the weekly lineup:
- Monday, Wednesday: Cardio
- Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday: Resistance training
- Friday, Saturday: Hybrid
The training to be the perfect blend of cardio and resistance, and everyone in the classes was able to modify the intensity to their ability.
Weekly Breakdown
Week 1
Time for my InBody scan. A trainer points out some markers that I should aim to lower for optimal health (visceral fat on my midsection was one of them). I'm in agreement with all of her advice, and nothing she says surprises me. I found it interesting, and it didn't bother me. Fair warning, though: a friend (at a different studio) told me she found the scan upsetting because she’d gained weight, so she started to veer towards extreme eating and exercise habits. It’s never worth compromising your mental health, so if you think the scan could upset you or trigger any risky behaviours (such as disordered eating), it’s best to opt out. The total picture of our health is about so many different things beyond numbers, including how we feel mentally.
I made it through my first class, albeit with some extra breaks and modifications, and timidly choosing all of the lightest weights on offer. I was stunned at how fast it moves. You do an exercise for 45 seconds at a station, and then have just 15 seconds to get to the next one - barely enough time to pick up your water bottle. But I left feeling high on endorphins, and proud of myself for showing up. I completed four classes in the week and had major DOMS - my body was definitely in shock.
Week 2
I have never really lifted weights before, and am surprised to discover that, by week two, I actually love it. Resistance classes quickly replace running as my go-to form of stress-busting exercise. Go to a lunchtime weights class, and suddenly things are back in perspective.
One strength training exercise involves hanging from some TRX ropes and attempting to lift your body up. The trainer walks by, and I simply hang there like a comedy sack of potatoes. I physically cannot lift myself. But, onwards. I remind myself that no one cares. The beauty of F45 classes is that everyone's doing different moves, so everyone is focused on themselves, not you.
Week 3
I have come to accept that no one ever leaves F45 classes looking cute. It’s sweaty business, people. Back sweat, upper lip sweat, ass sweat. There is no room for vanity here, helped by the fact that no F45 studios have any mirrors - which I adore. I leave every session red-faced and bedraggled, but always glad I’ve gone. By this point, I’m feeling chuffed to be lifting slightly heavier weights.
Week 4
Every week I typically look forward to an hourlong Saturday or Sunday sesh before brunch, but this week I attempt to go while I’m on my period. Huge mistake. I find it utterly exhausting and too much. After only half an hour, I’m feeling unable to go on, and so I just leave early. I vow in future not to go to any of the cardio or hybrid sessions when I’m on my cycle; my body just needs something more restorative at that time of the month. Outside of that day, I am still loving the endorphin after-glow that each class brings, and my sleep is blessedly, dramatically better. Hallelujah.
Week 5
My mum is in London, over visiting from America. We’re staying in a hotel in a different neighbourhood, so I’m nowhere near my F45 studio. We've got a packed schedule and this is precious time together, so I always knew I’d skip classes this week. We’re logging an insane daily step count, though, so I still feel like I’m keeping my activity levels well up. I'd started to feel a little knee pain anyway, so I decide the break is good.