weight lifting exercises are more important to losing weight than diet

atlas_star

Strength training with less cardio (~30min) is a bigger influence on maintaining muscle in a calorie deficit than macros.

You can have super high protein, excellent macros in a deficit and still lose muscle. The effect of diet in preserving muscle is miniscule in comparison to the lifting weight components.

If you lift weights, you'll preserve muscle even if your diet isn't perfect.

Lots of cardio and a deficit isn't the way to go. Lifting weights is non-negotiable. Losing muscle should be avoided at all costs as it affects and impedes all aspects of weight loss.

source: says me

ninerbuff

Subjective. If the goal is to lose weight, then diet is more important. And while I do believe you should lift weights to retain what muscle one already has, when the goal is losing weight then it's not entirely necessary. For instance, someone who's obese many times already has increased muscle mass in their legs because they've had to carry more weight progressively as they gained. If one is obese, then losing the most amount of weight to a more normal level is more important than retaining all their muscle they've already had gained through that process.

So you're title heading is misleading especially since there are things like dance, pilates, etc. that don't include lifing weights and people lose weight on them just fine.
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sollyn23l2

atlas_star wrote: »

Strength training with less cardio (~30min) is a bigger influence on maintaining muscle in a calorie deficit than macros.

You can have super high protein, excellent macros in a deficit and still lose muscle. The effect of diet in preserving muscle is miniscule in comparison to the lifting weight components.

If you lift weights, you'll preserve muscle even if your diet isn't perfect.

Lots of cardio and a deficit isn't the way to go. Lifting weights is non-negotiable. Losing muscle should be avoided at all costs as it affects and impedes all aspects of weight loss.

source: says me

I mostly agree when it comes to preserving muscle. But I'd say they're equally important, as they work in tandem. If you lift weights, but eat in too steep of a calorie deficit with not enough protein, you're likely going to lose a fair amount of muscle, because your body won't be able to keep the muscle without sufficient protein. Same thing for weight training. You can eat all the protein, but if you're not weight training, your body will just turn it to fat.

evileyefirefly

I'd say they are both important. Strength training is needed to build muscle which will burn more calories over time, and you need the muscle. However cardio is important as well for your health and is still very good at calorie burn. You really need both for optimal loss/health. I tend to do circuit training with weights to get both together. (High rep/lower weight, 30sec rest between machines)

lynn_glenmont

Sufficient calories, sufficient protein, sufficient progressive resistance training, and sufficient rest are all limiting factors.

Think of them like four different essential amino acids. You're only going to build protein until you've used up one of them. After that, it doesn't matter if you still have some of the other amino acids leftvover.

Adventurista

For diabetes, combo workout of cardio followed by strength has a 24 hr or longer enduring beneficial impact on blood glucose...

as does muscle mass.

Cardio is important for endurance and heart/cardio health... and 10 mins vigorous cardio such as a brisk walk can help to lower the spikes in glucose after eating.

So i would fall in with both cardio and strength are important/essential, together at times, but also either kind separately as well for particular focus/priority on issues.

AnnPT77

Weight lifting is the most efficient exercise modality to gain or maintain strength and muscle mass, and (subjectively) everyone would be well advised to do some.

But . . .

Weight lifting is not the only form of strength challenge that can minimize loss of lean tissue alongside fat loss that's triggered by calorie deficit.

"Cardio" is not all one thing. Some so-called "cardio" includes strength challenge, and some types even allow mild progressivity of that challenge.

What constitutes a relevant strength challenge varies with the starting fitness/strength level of the person wanting that strength challenge.

Strength challenge is probably necessary to minimize muscle loss during weight loss, but not sufficient. If nutrition is bad enough (especially but not exclusively protein intake), it will be a limiting factor. Aggressively fast weight loss is nearly always a bad plan for muscle mass retention, since we can only metabolize a certain amount of stored fat per day per pound of stored fat we have on our body. Any additional calorie deficit will be made up from other body tissue, after the body does its adaptive thermogenesis downregulation thing, at least.

As niner points out, losing some lean mass, and possibly even losing some muscle mass, may be a reasonable thing in severe cases of obesity.

Most of the above is Sez Me, but if pressed I could dig up reasonable cites for most of it.

Here's my overgeneralized and unreasonable opinion: People who really enjoy and feel they have benefitted from weight lifting sometimes seem to want to misunderstand and mischaracterize cardio, especially if they don't enjoy cardio as they see it. That's human. Personally, I don't enjoy weight training, and don't do nearly enough of it. I do try to keep it in perspective and give good, nuanced advice to others.

Everyone would be healthier and fitter with significant strength challenge in their exercise repertoire. That's true whether I adhere to that advice or not.

ETA PS: I think your thesis statement in the title is wrong. "weight lifting exercises are more important to losing weight than diet". Calorie deficit is more important to losing weight . . . it's the only way to lose weight, whether we count the calories, or not. Weight lifting, good stuff though it is, doesn't burn many calories. That puts more emphasis on the food intake side for weight loss, if lifting is done instead of cardio (which is a fine tradeoff to make, if a person wants to lose weight that way). Where strength training comes in is the body composition goals we may have alongside weight loss per se.

nossmf

Click-bait!

Rather than address the debate of diet vs lifting, I want to instead challenge one of the last statements from the OP:

atlas_star wrote: »

Lifting weights is non-negotiable.

I'm an avid weightlifter who will gladly discuss all the intricacies of lifting until you are blue in the face, but I want to swap these two words for "strength training is non-negotiable." Lifting weights is NOT the only way to challenge the body's strength. Doing bodyweight workouts will prompt the body to develop impressive musculature (just glance at any Olympic gymnast). Swimming forces you to work against the resistance of the water with every motion. Rock climbing forces the body to adjust in surprising ways, as does boxing, rowing, and a wide variety of other athletic movements.

gerrieryba

Through calorie deficit and cardio focused exercise, I lost the weight I wanted to lose, especially around my middle. And, I have been sustaining that weight for awhile. However, with age and hormone changes, I have noticed muscle mass loss and the resulting weakness in my endurance sports from that loss. I, like the OP, decided I needed to swap out high cardio focused workouts (distance running) for weight focused strength training and swap out a more carb focused diet for a protein focused diet. I have been loving the look ( noticable muscle and tone)and feel (power) of that switch. Unfortunately, I gained 7 pounds, and not all of that 7 pounds is muscle. I have my soft pillowy belly back and the resulting tightness of my waist bands around my middle. My thoughts are I should add back some of my running for at least a few times a week but not the distance I had been doing. 3 miles 2-3 times a week should be fine at the calories I currently consume and time I have with weight lifting. In conclusion, based on my experience with this topic, I agree with the OP to a point. Their opinion works for me at this stage in my life but it would not have 10+ years ago. Also I found ommiting all-together my idea of high cardio (running) wasn't such a good idea for me and my idea of fittness so I am bring it back to a much lesser degree.

Barcherik

Strength training really is crucial for preserving muscle, especially when you’re in a calorie deficit. A while back, I got caught up in doing tons of cardio while trying to lose weight. I was seeing the scale drop, but I noticed I was losing strength and muscle tone, which was super frustrating.

ninerbuff

Barcherik wrote: »

Strength training really is crucial for preserving muscle, especially when you’re in a calorie deficit. A while back, I got caught up in doing tons of cardio while trying to lose weight. I was seeing the scale drop, but I noticed I was losing strength and muscle tone, which was super frustrating.

Yes a STRENGTH training or RESISTANCE training program is important for health and muscle retention. One doesn't ALWAYS have to lift weights to do this since bodyweight and HIIT exercises are also resistance training and helps to preserve muscle. Look at sprinter's bodies. Or that of a gymnast or rock climber. There are so many ways to still involve resistance training into a routine without having to lift weights.


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AnnPT77

Barcherik wrote: »

Strength training really is crucial for preserving muscle, especially when you’re in a calorie deficit. A while back, I got caught up in doing tons of cardio while trying to lose weight. I was seeing the scale drop, but I noticed I was losing strength and muscle tone, which was super frustrating.

Yes, true if a person defines strength training in a much broader way than usually is true for those saying "strength training is essential".

@Nossmf is right: Anything that challenges current strength is "strength training". It needs to keep challenging current strength as strength increases, in order to keep strength increasing (i.e., incorporate progressivity). If those conditions are met, muscle mass will increase . . . eventually. Weight training and proper bodyweight training are the most efficient modalities for meeting those conditions.

That said, most of any extra muscle mass I have compared with others in my demographic came from "cardio" in the form of rowing, on water and machine . . . and I do have more than average. It was a slow route to that outcome, but it wasn't my goal, it was just a nice side effect.

There's also reasonable research suggesting that aerobic exercise helps avoid or minimize muscle loss during weight loss. For example:

". . . both endurance- and resistance-type exercise help preserve muscle mass during weight loss, and resistance-type exercise also improves muscle strength."

Source: "Preserving Healthy Muscle during Weight Loss" from the journal Advances in Nutrition

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28507015/

That's a random example; there are others.

Weight lifting or bodyweight exercise is more efficient at doing this, too, of course. I recommend that people do some during weight loss, along with some cardiovascular challenge. Even the cardio IMO is not so much for weight loss but for health, and ideally for enjoyment. It's just a bonus that it lets us eat a few more calories - and get better nutrition if we make good choices - while losing at the same sensibly moderate rate.

Dividing exercise activity into strict categories of "strength training" vs. "cardio" loses a lot of nuance that matters in real life.

P.S. Too-fast weight loss pace will tend to cause "losing strength and muscle tone". Exercise of many types helps minimize that downside, and strength challenge helps most. But losing weight fast is a Bad Plan for other reasons, not just loss of strength and muscle tone.