I can’t tell you how many times I hear, “I don’t want to bulk up” or “get big” or “gain weight” – and oh yes, “I hate to sweat.” Even worse, today’s world promises you a smaller body in six weeks with little or no work, no matter what your age. So why would you work out?

I’m here to tell you the truth: the body builders you see in magazines or infomercials work really hard to get those perfect bodies. Bodybuilders work out strenuously for two hours a day, five times a week with very heavy weights. They also eat about 2,000 to 3,000 calories a day of healthy, high protein foods, which the average person never does.

We may eat 2,000 calories a day, but the combinations are usually wrong. Mostly this is not our fault, especially when we are marketed to so heavily by large food companies telling us what is healthy and what isn’t.

In addition, you need to know that muscle uses fat as a fuel source for you to move. If you don’t have muscle, then you are not burning fat. You are also not moving very fast. You are only using what we call usable calories, which come from the food we just ate that has not turned to fat.

I know this sounds fine, but here is the problem: the less you eat, the more fat you store, and the more you store, the less energy you have to move. Muscle allows your body to burn fat. Muscle also has less volume to it than fat, and therefore it moves more smoothly and with greater ease.

Most people want an easy answer when they try to lose weight, but there isn’t one. Losing weight takes work, commitment and determination. Make the decision: call a trainer, grab some weights and move them for 30 minutes one day, alternating with a cardio workout the next day – meaning you move for 30 minutes without weights.

One of the many reasons we slow down as we age is that we lack muscle mass. Fat slows the body down from the inside, so get moving and put on the muscle.

E-mail me with questions at [email protected].