Need advice Please Losing Weight, Weight lifting, vs Cardio and the Scale

AmberBelandria

I need a bit of advice. I hear all the time ignore the scale it means nothing. Go by the way your clothes fit. Well I would actually like to see the scale decline by 30 pounds. My questions is Which is the best way to achieve this? By Cardio and diet or by Cardio diet and Weight lifting. I have done the P90x before and my clothes did decrease in size but I never seen the scale decrease at all. I want the numbers to decrease by 30 pounds. I am 35 I weight 195 and I want to be between 150 and 160. I am 5'9 in height.

rosebarnalice

To lose weight, you need to create a calorie deficit-- e.g., burn more calories than you consume. Period. For me, cardio is the way to go to do that.

roxilegend

The way I see it, if your only concern is the scale dropping, you can do that through diet alone. All you have to do is eat at a deficit and the weight will start to drop.

That being said, exercise is still very useful. Cardio, besides being good for your body's health, can help you create or stay in that deficit. Weight lifting, from my understanding, is mostly about preserving lean muscle as you lose. You won't burn as many calories lifting as you will from cardio, but once you get to your goal weight the muscle you kept while lifting will help you look leaner and prevent that "skinny fat" look. The way you go about it is based purely on your goals and your lifestyle. Good luck!

shor0814

My general rules are

1. Diet change is the most effective and easiest way to change the calorie intake. Deficit for weight loss, surplus for weight gain.
2. Cardio is great for general health. Heart, lungs, daily life. It is also a way to increase a calorie deficit and eat more food. Run, walk, cycle, jump rope, etc. Maybe circuit training with light weights at a fast pace with minimal rest.
3. Strength training is a way to keep muscle you already have while losing fat when combined with a calorie deficit especially as an untrained novice. This means lifting at near maximum for lower reps 1-5. At some point you plateau and struggle to gain strength in a lower calorie environment. At this point you need more food and need to l at a much lower calorie deficit.
4. Muscle building requires a calorie surplus. There is some muscle building as an overweight novice but very limited. This requires food and heavy weights at a 6-10ish rep range.
5. Rest. Allow your body to repair and get you ready for the next challenge both mentally and physically.

These are my rules and should be taken with a grain of salt. Combine them in a way that suits your goals.

LolaKarwowski

I eat at a maintenance (but still am at a deficit by 100 or so cals)
I lift heavy (low reps rather than high reps)
I do no cardio (well, sometimes if I'm motivated enough but it's rare)

I'm losing inches, looking great, and the scale has yet to move. Not saying this is how it will be for you. If you have fat to shed then you will lose pounds! BUT, eventually you will have to ignore the scale and rely more on pictures, measurements, and the way that you feel.

Good luck!

LisaAnn642015

As like so many said here all the above is important and useful and maybe try to change just one thing for a week and see how you do, but I still believe combining cardio and weights is important to not lose your muscle mass while dropping weight. So many that have done just cardio sometimes don't like the way their shape looks when there at their goal weight that they find out the weight training gives them Have a Great Day!

gabrielsaucedo21

Here is some advice I've gave the girls in my family. Stay at calorie deficit, for you as a girl keep fat grams below 30/day. Best time to workout is in the morning, or early afternoon never late, especially no cardio at night. Lift heavy 3 seats of 8-10reps, cardio is great add in, but lifting is the key. My sister in law went from 200 to 125

printdoc2006

Weighted exercises might be great for maintenance and Cardio creates the needed calories burned to lose weight however nothing can sub for eating clean. When I want to lean out I increase my miles and lower my calories it's an amazing furnace affect. All the cross fit programs are nice however diet is key.

Best of luck

CasperNaegle

So the real question is what is your body fat%. You can lose fat and gain muscle buy lifting heavy and putting your body in a calorie deficit. I don't do much cardio at all. I have lost 30 pounds of fat and increased my muscle by 10 pounds or so. You should take a look at muscleforlife.com and look up the lose weight and gain muscle article. It will help you get your calories right and a good breakdown of protein to carb to fats to get there. He has a great workout program that will help you build muscle. The scale is really just a part of the equation so don't focus just on it.

jgnatca

Losing Weight - eat at a calorie deficit. The losses will become more gradual as you come close to goal.
Weight lifting - Great for definition. Muscles are handy! You will only gain muscle if you are getting a SURPLUS of calories daily.
Cardio - Gets your heart rate up, burns more calories. But less than people imagine. A rough estimate is twenty minutes of vigorous exercise for one cookie. It's a healthy thing to do.
the Scale - use a tracking tool that shows your trend and weigh no more than once a week (same time of day same day of week). Round it up to the nearest five pounds, as you can fluctuate five pounds in a single day from water weight.

Take the long view.

kcjchang

From a pure expenditure perspective cardio beats out weight lifting. Most are interjecting beginning level of fitness and physical appeal when suggestion weight lifting (seems to be the predominate voice here at MFP). If you are sedentary and untrained, both type of exercises can be a challenge but some forms of cardio are more stressful than other (assuming you are comparing light resistance weight training which is often shouted out). Light resistance exercise (including cardio) adds the advantage of preserving (or retarding loss of) lean body mass (everything that is not fat so don't think it as all muscles as water in your body is a constituent of LBM) as you loss weight since most are incline to loss fat not just weight.

Creating a calorie deficit is by far the most effective way of losing weight. You can do longer and more intense cardio as substitute but most people don't have the time (hours as opposed to one or it's fraction) or the dedication. It's easier not to eat that cupcake, donuts, or what have you than to run half an hour, bike an hour, etc. Weight fluctuates so I would recommend comparing apples to apples: weekly weight ins (keeping the environment as consistent as possible) and keeping a 7 day running average for evaluation.

It's possible with cardio, I ate around maintenance and cycled 8-12 hours a week for over a year (while increasing my intensity along the way to more than two fold overall) to loss 50 pounds, but the calorie deficit component is still the key. My net calorie consumption was around 1600; my maintain at sedentary is around 2100. When I started a 30 minutes bicycle ride at 16mph on flats was tough. Now I'm can cruise at 20mph for two more hours. And in the last six months, I have also completed 6 centuries and 2 metric centuries. I would venture to say this is not typical. I adopted this strategy because I didn't like feeling hungry all the time and hated working out in a gym. I also love cycling.

Good luck.