Hi Blueberry and welcome to LWL!
First of all, BFL stands for Body For Life, a nutrition and exercise plan developed by Bill Phillips. There’s a companion cookbook out now too, called Eating For Life (you may see it as EFL). There’s lots of information about BFL and getting started with weights in the Basic Bodybuilding Information sticky in the top of this forum.
Now to the real question: weights now or later? Oh boy, do I want to answer your question because I feel SO strongly about it!! My opinion is
NOW!
Take a look at the photo under my name to the left. I was wearing those pants the day I walked into a gym weighing 257 pounds, on June 1, 2001. I can tell you what worked for me — what got 132 pounds of ugly fat off my body and added ten pounds of muscle — and I’ll let you draw your own conclusions, OK?
Once I joined the gym, I was beyond clueless about what to do there so I started working with a trainer. He explained to me that there are
three essential components to successful weight loss: cardio, weights, and nutrition. So he had me working out with weights, at first three days a week, then four, and then five (which I still do). I lifted as heavy as I could — about 10-12 reps per set (but it varied). Our goal was to build as much muscle as possible at the same time that I was losing fat.
Why? Like you say in your post, we want to build muscle in order to burn fat — muscle is metabolically active tissue that burns calories 24/7. If you lose weight without building muscle, about half of what you lose will be muscle and about half fat, I’ve read. Since the goal is to preserve muscle and lose fat, we build muscle, which in turn helps us burn fat.
My many years of yo-yo dieting were tremendously destructive because I never exercised. I’d lose 20 or 30 pounds (probably about half of which was muscle) and then I’d regain the weight (plus bonus pounds) and it would be all fat. So gradually I changed my body composition to be more and more fat and less muscle. And of course that decreased my metabolism. My first body fat reading was a horrific 57%!
In addition, muscle is smaller than fat and gives you a tight, toned look:
http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/att...achmentid=17582 Just wait until the fat starts to come off and you can see those baby biceps — tank top time!
Oh, and by the way, fat can’t turn into muscle or vice versa — they’re totally different organs of the body (it would be like your nose turning into your pancreas
).
Sooooo … my recommendation is for you to incorporate weight training into your overall weight loss program NOW and I really think it will pay off for you while you are losing the fat and long after.
C’mon over to our weekly thread and join in!
Newbie with a question
WE 
!
