Workout routine help

Tabitha_Priest

Hi, I am trying to lose weight and I'm combining weight lifting, cardio, and diet to help reach my goal. I've tried searching for this on the web but I can't seem to find the answer. I'm probably not phrasing it right. Anyway, I try to go to the gym 5 to 6 days a week. My question is how often should I do cardio and how often should I weightlift? Should I combine them everyday or alternate? This is my first time doing diet, cardio, and weightlifting so I'm new at this. I'm hoping this will finally kick those pounds to the curb. Thanks in advance for any help!!!

crb426

You lose weight by having a calorie deficit. Cutting calories is the best way to do this. Cardio will burn more calories. Weight lifting might burn some, but not as much. So if weight loss is your goal cardio and cutting calories are the way to go.

My advice, plug your information on this site and plug things into the food and exercise diaries. That should help get you started.

malibu927

Whatever satisfies you. Cardio will help strengthen your heart, lifting will help retain lean muscle and give you a better look when you reach your goal weight. Most, especially beginners, will limit lifting to three nonconsecutive days a week so muscles have time to repair.

Olivia

MFP Staff Testing - Please ignore me.

ew_david

Look into actual programs for lifting and cardio. Find things that appeal to you and things your think you can stick with. That will help guide what you should do/want to do on any given day. Also quality > quantity; the length of your workouts doesn't matter if the quality is lacking. For instance, I would benefit more from 45 minutes of my lifting program than 1.5 hours of half-assed machine hopping. I would advise going balls to the wall on both though; burnout is real.

josephka

Another idea is bodybuilding.com, which has a lot of workout programs you can choose from and plenty of ideas