Muscle, Man

Confession: I have changed my early morning TV habits. I used to watch Charlotte and Starbuck on the CBS early morning show. But when I'm on my bike, I have to put the closed caption on and read the dialogue and it loses some of its charm that way. So I discovered The Nate Berkus Show, Rachel Ray and Oprah reruns on OWN, beginning at 5 a.m.

What does this mean to you?

Unfortunately it means that I see more of Dr. Oz than is probably healthy. He' s a frequent guest on Rachel and Oprah.And he's full of tidbits that may or may not be horribly helpful ... but they're occasionally interesting. Which means I have snippets of information to regurgitate to you.

Feel free to groan.

Here's something I learned yesterday.

The question was posed, "Why do men lose weight more easily than women? Why does it seem like they can lose it faster? Is it a myth or is it true?"

First, Dr. Oz says it's true. Men do lose weight faster and easier. And it happens because they have more muscles. Muscles "burn" more calories than fat.

In other words, if there's a muscle-y person and a fat person, sitting still, side by side, DOING NOTHING AT ALL, the muscle-y person will burn more calories while just sitting there than the person with a higher percentage of body fat.

So you're following, right? Men have more muscles than women do. Therefore, they burn more calories doing absolutely nothing than we do.

The lucky bastards.

The good doctor also went on to say that lifting weights is so important for women of a certain age. (Like, say, mid 40s, ahem.) That's when your metabolism starts slowing down, when you stop making as much testosterone. More exercise and eating right can't compensate for that slowdown, which is why it's so hard to lose weight after 40. But strength training can help offset the slowdown.

So, I'm upping my strength training. I'm choosing to view it as "extra credit" ... something that works for me after I've quite working out. More reps. More weight. More days per week.



(And for the record, lifting weights will NOT make you look like this. Steroids and complete obsession makes you look like this. Or worse ... Google female body builders images sometime. Downright freaky, IMHO.)