I am just going to throw this in here. One of my pet peeves that I see so often in the summer (not little kids with bike helmets on wrong ) is people walking/jogging with weights. Weights should be done on their own and aerobics should be done without weights. Carrying weights when jogging is really hard on the joints and does no good to the upper body muscles. It only causes injuries. The best thing to do is 15-20 minutes of weight training 3x a week or so before aerobics. If you are training for backpacking- as I have done- then go ahead and load up a backpack, otherwise just jog/walk as is.
Also I'm not sure if this has been mentioned, but as my husband always says "muscle burns more calories". So the idea of building muscle is that it will help you burn calories faster- more muscle mass uses more calories.
-------------------- IBS-A for 20 years with terrible bloating and gas. On the diet since April 2004. Remember this from Heather's information pages:
"You absolutely must eat insoluble fiber foods, and as much as safely possible, but within the IBS dietary guidelines. Treat insoluble fiber foods with suitable caution, and you'll be able to enjoy a wide variety of them, in very healthy quantities, without problem." Please eat IF foods!