June 2003. With "The Incredible Hulk" entering theaters this week, it seems like a good time to talk about "hulking up!" To bulk or not to bulk, that is the question and it's a good one!

First, I hear this one all the time: "I don't want to lift weights because I don't want to bulk up." And the fact of the matter is that the female telling me this is talking to me because she is already bulking up and wants to find out how to stop it! It is going to be the activity of weight lifting that contributes most to halting the incredible hulking effect in her, not the running away from it, and here's why.

Every pound of muscle in your body burns around 50 calories per day, even without doing any exercise at all! That means that you can burn an additional 350 calories a week by building just one pound of muscle. That one pound of muscle will burn 1 pound of fat every 10 days, with everything else being equal. And that 1 pound of fat per 10 day ratio equals 35 pounds of fat a year!

Strength training is the way to build muscle, but women need not be afraid of bulking because it takes a lot of work to build a pound of muscle. Women have less testosterone and our bodies like to burn carbohydrates for fuel. Carbohydrates are stored in your muscle and liver, so if you aren't eating enough and/or are doing too much cardiovascular activity, your body is going to "waste" your muscle as it looks for a quick source of energy. Strength training will minimize muscle wastage (and the associated increase in body fat) and cause your muscle to grow, but not outwardly so much as making it denser and sleeker.

Men on the other hand have more testosterone and their bodies prefer burning fat for fuel. It's easy to see why men tend to have more natural muscle and less fat than women, isn't it? Men, however, don't generally ask me fearfully about bulking up, and as they are watching "The Incredible Hulk" over the summer, I'm pretty sure they are going to be secretly wishing that big hulking body was their own!