Pick up some weight to drop some

Does your upper body look like an upside-down muffin? Well, if you have the interest in getting rid of that paunch around your waist, you would do well to begin a strength training workout.

Proper diet is an extremely vital component of weight loss and total health, just as cardiovascular training plays a large role in both. However, far too many people are missing out on the fat-burning and muscle toning effects of resistance training, mostly because they still subscribe to the arcane belief that lifting weights will instantly turn you into a bodybuilder.

If you're still hestiant to try resistance training, perhaps the results of a recent University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine study will help sway you a bit. Researchers found that when women ages 25 to 44 strength trained for 45 minutes twice a week for one year, they shed 4 percent of their total body fat -- much of which came from their midsection. And guess what? These dramatic body changes occurred without any dieting whatsoever.