Lifting Weights Keeps Weight Under Control

The Olympian reports:

"If you add three pounds of muscle, you'll burn off an extra 100 calories a day," said Bret Blount, spokesman for Nautilus Inc. "That's an extra 100 calories without doing anything at all except your normal daily activities."

But left to its own devices, the human body will do just the opposite.

"The average adult loses half a pound of muscle every year," Blount said. "You don't lose half a pound of weight; you lose half a pound of muscle. And that muscle is replaced by fat. So instead of thinking of using weights to pump up, we need to change our thinking so it's in terms of maintaining the muscle we've got."

It appears there's no substituting for lifting weights.