If you frequently read fitness articles and blogs (especially those focused on strength training), you’ll notice that many of them concentrate on the physical benefits (such as strengthening muscles, preventing age-related muscle loss, slowing bone loss) of regular exercise. While exercising is essential for physical fitness, it also helps overall wellness in other ways. Regular physical exercise boosts your immune system, manages and improves diabetes, lowers blood pressure, and so much more. It can also have positive effects on your mental health, too.

Though aerobic exercise has been commonly attributed to reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety, recent research has shown that strength training can substantially improve your mood and mental wellbeing.

Below, we’ll discuss some of the many ways you can use strength training to strengthen your mental health, boost your mood and feel better all around.

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Type 2 Diabetes is an impairment in the way the body regulates and uses sugar (glucose) as fuel. Genetics, age, being overweight and inactivity are just a few of the contributing factors to diabetes. Whether you are pre-diabetic, newly diagnosed, or have had diabetes for years, living a healthier lifestyle and incorporating more exercise into your daily routine can help you manage your disease.

So, can strength training help you manage and improve diabetes? The short answer is “Yes!” Here are a few reasons why:

Strength Training Helps with Weight Management

Researchers know that excess weight and a sedentary lifestyle are major contributing factors to diabetes. By maintaining a healthy weight, you can lower your risk factors for diabetes significantly. One study by the Mayo Clinic showed that moderate strength training with an increase in muscle mass can reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 32 percent!

Super Slow strength training has many benefits when it comes to weight management. Strength training works because it helps you to lose fat while increasing lean muscle mass. When you do this, your body burns more calories with less effort, including when you are at rest.

Strength Training Can Help Keep Insulin Levels in Check

Strength training can help manage insulin levels during and after your workouts. With each muscle you engage during your workout, you’re enabling glucose to enter the cells of your muscle to be used for fuel without additional insulin. Strength training also:

• helps your body respond better overall to insulin
• helps improve the way your body uses blood sugar
• can help you lose weight 

Strength Training and the Right Diet

We can’t say it enough—diet and exercise go hand in hand! You could be eating all the right foods and still not seeing the results you want, just like you could be exercising in all the right ways but the foods you are eating prevent you from making progress.

For strength training to be successful, it’s important to feed your body the right combination of protein, carbs and fats. A general guide for fat loss, while still building muscle, is to have a macronutrient diet that is 40 percent protein, 30 percent fat, and 30 percent carbs. There are many ways to approach this, from adjusting the types of foods you eat to looking for healthy alternatives.

All of the certified personal trainers here at Loyalty Fitness are committed to helping you realize the health benefits of strength training, and we want you to be successful with nutrition too! Book a personal training session today and we will help customize a plan that is right for your body’s needs.