What Happens To Your Body When You Always Lift the Same Amount Of Weight

Much like our breakfast of choice or what we wear, most of us tend to gravitate to routine when it comes to our lifting workouts: We often use the same amount of weight, over and over. No shame—it’s particularly comforting to select a weight size you know you can handle when you’re at the gym, and when you’re sweating at home, you may not have a variety of weights to work with. But experts say not changing your weight size means you’ll be missing out on some pretty hefty benefits.

“When you train with the same weight week to week, over time, your body will adapt to the resistance, and you won’t see gains in muscular strength or hypertrophy [size],” says Jacque Crockford, a certified strength and conditioning specialist and exercise physiologist with the American Council on Exercise. Compare it to running the same distance every time you hop on the treadmill—at some point, you’re not going to see your body improve, since you’re no longer challenging it.

5 Things Losing Weight Will Never Fix

Think losing weight will make you happier, more confident, and kick-ass at work? Well, it doesn't really work like that...

That's something Kelsey Miller, author of Big Girl: How I Gave Up Dieting And Got A Life, learned the hard way. “I used to tell myself, 'You can do this when you’ve lost X pounds.' That feeling was holding me back in my career and my friendships—it even stopped me from leaving the house," she says.

“The message that weight loss will fix our problems surrounds us,” says clinical psychologist Terese Weinstein Katz, Ph.D., author of the ebook Eat Sanely: Get Off The Diet Roller Coaster For Good. “There’s a fantasy that thin people are ultimately happier.”

While losing weight might make you feel unstoppable at first (and possibly improve your overall health), there are a few issues that dropping pounds definitely won't resolve. So before you set a goal weight, make it your mission to work out the kinks now—not post weight-loss success.

The Easiest Way to Keep Off Weight

Good news for your waistline: A shot of sunshine in the morning may lower your body mass index (BMI), according to a new study from Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.

Regardless of an individual's physical activity level, diet, sleep, or age, people who had most of their daily exposure to natural light between 8 a.m. and noon had significantly lower BMIs than those who got most of their exposure later in the day.

The reason: Natural light provides a boost to your circadian rhythms—or your body's internal clock—which is known to regulate your metabolism, hunger, and energy levels, says co-lead author, Giovanni Santostasi, Ph.D. In fact, previous studies have found that constant exposure to bright light later in the afternoon or at night can throw off your circadian clock and increase your risk of obesity.

4 Reasons Running is Best for Weight Loss

Any exercise is good exercise, but when it comes to losing weight, it's hard to beat running. After all, running is one of the most efficient ways to burn calories and get fit without having to restrict your diet. If you're already a runner, keep on keepin' on. If you're not a runner yet but interested in losing weight, here are four reasons running can be the best exercise for weight loss. 

9 Ways to Avoid Holiday Weight Gain

By Pamela Nisevich Bede, M.S., R.D., Runner's World

'Tis the season to be constantly reminded we're all at risk of gaining 5, 10, even 15 (!) pounds between Thanksgiving and New Year's. Seriously? Where do these numbers even come from, and do they apply to runners?

When looking at the pounds gained across the country in the weeks leading up to the new year, there's a bit of wiggle room in the evidence. Some articles report that Americans will gain an average of five to 10 pounds, other articles report four to six, some report only a modest increase of one pound (but once gained, this pound will never come off), and then there's a report suggesting that one needn't worry about any changes in weight or body composition (whew!).