Lessons Learned - Cardio vs. Weights

watto1980

I think it is quite well known that the body prefers when in calorie deficit to use muscle as fuel first before using fat as it considers the muscle less essential to the bodies survival, kind of saves the fat for last when it really needs it.

No that's a myth - glycogen and fat are the primary sources of energy.

Ok I will take your word for it, I am no expert. But from what I have read you have to keep lifting heavy when in calorie deficit to hold onto your muscle. So that is definitely what I will keep doing.

Where does your muscle go then in calorie deficit if you have plenty of fat it could use for fuel instead?

Yes you have to use your muscle to keep it but that's the same if you are in deficit, surplus or maintenance.
Totally agree that weight/strength training is vital when losing weight as it's much easier to retain muscle rather than diet down and then build back up.
Using active muscle for exercise fuel is the last resort rather than the first resort - it's a problem for very lean ultra marathon runners rather than ordinary people.

So for this experiment the loss of strength was due to not doing weight training for 20 days rather than doing 20 days of cardio.

yeah I see what you're saying. You lose the muscle through lack of use, not because it becomes your bodies primary fuel source. That's good at least I am still doing the right thing in regards to the weight training. I thought I might be able to stop and still get ripped up for a moment there

SuperCrsa

Thank you for sharing!

jennifer_417

Nvm.

alisonlynn1976

I'm not sure why people think this is an either/or. I do both. The strength training is definitely making a difference in my body composition, but the cardio helps too, in terms of creating a calorie deficit leading to weight loss. In fact, whenever I find myself frustrated that the scale hasn't moved in a week or two, I increase my cardio for a couple of days, and off goes a pound! I could accomplish the same by eating less, but I prefer to exercise more instead. I don't get why so many on here think that's so awful. I agree that lifting weights is important, but I see no reason not to also do cardio exercise to facilitate weight loss.

cardio only burns calories while you are doing the cardio but if you incorporate some resistance and interval training into your cardio it can work wonders as you experience something called after burn - this is when your calorie burning continues even though you are not doing cardio

the reason why cardio is important to do while exercising is endurance, cardio exercises the heart and lungs which are needless to say VERY important for exercise

But there you go assuming a dichotomy and tsk tsking me for *only* doing cardio when I clearly stated that it is not all I do.

Obviously, I am also burning calories in kettlebells class, for example, but there is only so much of that my body can endure per day/week. So if I want to attain a larger calorie deficit via adding exercise on a given day, I add 20-40 minutes on the elliptical after doing my strength training workout. I'm not choosing between the two, I'm doing both. Some people on here (not necessarily you, the person I'm replying to) seem to think that adding that extra cardio *does nothing at all for weight loss* or is even *detrimental to weight loss*, and that is not true. Weight loss is fundamentally calories in vs. calories out, by whatever means an individual chooses to use.

msf74

I'm not sure why people think this is an either/or. I do both. The strength training is definitely making a difference in my body composition, but the cardio helps too, in terms of creating a calorie deficit leading to weight loss. In fact, whenever I find myself frustrated that the scale hasn't moved in a week or two, I increase my cardio for a couple of days, and off goes a pound! I could accomplish the same by eating less, but I prefer to exercise more instead. I don't get why so many on here think that's so awful. I agree that lifting weights is important, but I see no reason not to also do cardio exercise to facilitate weight loss.

cardio only burns calories while you are doing the cardio but if you incorporate some resistance and interval training into your cardio it can work wonders as you experience something called after burn - this is when your calorie burning continues even though you are not doing cardio

the reason why cardio is important to do while exercising is endurance, cardio exercises the heart and lungs which are needless to say VERY important for exercise

Yeah, no.

Even steady state cardio triggers an EPOC response. The magnitude is less however than a resistance based / interval training session due to the intensity of the exercise - not simply because weights or intervals are some how magic.

To offest this you must consider that in general people are able to do less intense exercise for longer which results in greater overall calorie expenditure generally.

So, what do you think has the most calorie expenditure for me over the course of a given day

1) my 2 hour training cycle ride
2) my 40 minute weights session.

The answer I hope is obvious.

svsl0928

Thanks for sharing. Confirmed for me that I need to increase my weight lifting.

Swissmiss

You are right. Lifting and gaining muscle is very important. Who wants to loss weight and be still out of shape.

g1analaura

Thanks for sharing, I finally got a chance to read up on this. Here is a free book that might help you with these questions. I haven't finished reading, but basically sums up all that was discussed here.

10 Tips for Losing 10 Pounds in 20 Days

http://bfitandlive.com/blog/freebook

Greenrun99

Today I started back lifting and I lost about 5-10 pounds per exercise/set.

If you took a break from lifting for 20 days, you can't expect to jump in day 1 and do your max you were at before.. it takes a bit. Of course 2 hours of cardio a day sounds like an absolute nightmare.

mreeves261

I'm sorry what were you saying?

I got distracted by your picture!

Holy Hotness!!!!

Someone pass the weights!

jwdieter

With the same intake calories, switching to 2 hours of cardio/day instead of a basic strength training routine would reduce weight.

Seeing no weight change indicates an increase in intake calories to offset the cardio expenditures. While not doing any resistance training at all. Not an effective approach.