Cardio on fat-burn mode or weights?

nespinosa3

I want to lose weight (around 10 pounds more), but I am really trying to make it as much fat as possible. I eat 45% of my calories from protein, do heavy weights with a trainer 2x/week, and the rest of the days I take a group class or do cardio on fat-burning mode. I sometimes think I should add a third day of weights, but then I don't know if that would make the scale not change any more. At the same time, I don't know if just doing cardio on fat-burning mode the rest of the days will get me there. As far as fat AND weight loss, which one is better? More weights or more cardio on fat burn?

3laine75

More weights. Cardio will obviously burn fat but at a steady state for extended periods, my understanding is, you're going to lose some muscle too. Strength training will help you preserve LBM while you lose fat.

Calorie deficit is your best weapon though.

nespinosa3

More weights. Cardio will obviously burn fat but at a steady state for extended periods, my understanding is, you're going to lose some muscle too. Strength training will help you preserve LBM while you lose fat.

Calorie deficit is your best weapon though.

Yes I am eating at a deficit...I'm eating 1500 calories a day, and losing around 2 pounds/month. I'm just afraid that more weights will mean less weight loss :S it's taken a loooot of time already and I'm getting desperate

LKArgh

I doubt it will make any difference. You are eating at a deficit, so you will not get huge if this is the question. Also you do not have a ton of weight to lose, and you are not losing at a ridiculously fast pace, so you are not going to end up with too much loose skin etc if you do not add extra weight training. Do what ever you like doing more at the moment

MeanderingMammal

... my understanding is, you're going to lose some muscle too.

No, that's just a weak excuse by those who don't want to do cardio.

Any exercise draws fuel from a range of sources, once all of your readily available sources are depleted, then muscle and organ tissue are more readily accessible, but you're talking several hours without any form of refueling before that starts to happen.

MeanderingMammal

More weights or more cardio on fat burn?

Sounds like you've got the balance alright at the moment, although it depends on whether your cardio sessions are reasonable quality or not; a range of intensities and either weight bearing or whole body.

robabob3

you lift twice a week and the other 5 days you do cardio? I would definitely consider adding at least 1 more day of lifting, especially if you are one of those people who likes to do long cardio sessions. Especially if your main concern is losing fat and maintaining muscle. You could do weights 6 days a week and minimal to no cardio if you wanted too.

No, that's just a weak excuse by those who don't want to do cardio.

Any exercise draws fuel from a range of sources, once all of your readily available sources are depleted, then muscle and organ tissue are more readily accessible, but you're talking several hours without any form of refueling before that starts to happen.

I lost alot of weight doing mostly cardio and some weights, then gained back to original. Lost alot of weight doing mostly weights and some cardio, if your gonna claim that the POSSIBILITY of losing muscle by doing cardio is just a weak excuse im gonna have to disagree as I have the photos and personally experienced losing weight from mostly cardio and then losing weight from mostly lifting.... there is absolutely a muscle difference.

loubidy

If you're doing heavy lifting do you have to lose pounds? Or could you focus on body fat percentage?

3dogsrunning

Forget the "fat burning mode". It is pretty pointless for weight loss. Those zones are based on loose averages and are often very inaccurate. Also, even if you are in the right zone - the fat burning zone is a very low intensity. You burn more "fat" calories but the overall burn is low. If you are working out in a higher zone, you burn a smaller percentage of "fat" calories, but the overall burn is much higher, so even with the lower percent burn, you still burn more "fat" calories.

greypilgrimess

Forget the "fat burning mode". It is pretty pointless for weight loss. Those zones are based on loose averages and are often very inaccurate. Also, even if you are in the right zone - the fat burning zone is a very low intensity. You burn more "fat" calories but the overall burn is low. If you are working out in a higher zone, you burn a smaller percentage of "fat" calories, but the overall burn is much higher, so even with the lower percent burn, you still burn more "fat" calories.

^^ This.

ndj1979

More weights. Cardio will obviously burn fat but at a steady state for extended periods, my understanding is, you're going to lose some muscle too. Strength training will help you preserve LBM while you lose fat.

Calorie deficit is your best weapon though.

Yes I am eating at a deficit...I'm eating 1500 calories a day, and losing around 2 pounds/month. I'm just afraid that more weights will mean less weight loss :S it's taken a loooot of time already and I'm getting desperate

how would more weights = less fat loss if you are in a deficit? I do not understand the reasoning here...

ndj1979

OP - i would suggest switching to at least three days a week strength training and then do cardio on off lifting days (if you really want to) and try to have at least one, one hundred percent rest day ..

what does your current weight training consist of?

If you really wanted to you could go with a four day upper/lower routine and do cardio two days a week...

MeanderingMammal

I lost alot of weight doing mostly cardio and some weights, then gained back to original. Lost alot of weight doing mostly weights and some cardio, if your gonna claim that the POSSIBILITY of losing muscle by doing cardio is just a weak excuse im gonna have to disagree

You perhaps haven't noticed the stridently vocal minority on here who espouse the idea that CV work essentially melts muscle, even to the extent of CV sessions of >40 minutes being a BAD THING (tm). As Broscience goes it's a persistent myth but it does get a fair bit of airtime on here. It's generally the same as the don't do cardio, do HIIT cult, essentially saying don't do cardio, do one of the three types of quality cardio session, which is nonsensical.

Clearly the muscle retention element of any CV session does depend on what exercise one is talking about, both in terms of type of exercise and type of session. Similarly not all resistance training is actually going to lead to a significant amount of muscle retention.

As we lose weight in deficit then we lose from all sources of fuel; glycogen, fat, muscle, organ tissue etc. by doing any training that encourages muscle retention then we optimise towards fat loss being a greater proportion. Doing CV work for long sessions without adequately fuelling is going to lead to an exhaustion of glycogen leading to some fuel coming from muscle tissue. For the majority of people if training for that long without fuelling then the prospect of some muscle tissue loss is probably the least of their worries.

Running, cycling, rowing, swimming all have a resistance effect as well as a CV effect. One isn't going to build any muscle using these, even when eating in surplus with an increased protein consumption, but they're going to have an effect on muscle retention when in deficit.

Personally I don't do much resistance work; 2 sessions a week cf between 5 and 7 sessions of running, cycling or rowing. That's led to a reduction in my bodyfat percentage of 30% in the last year, I'm now in the low end of normal bodyfat. Clearly there is quite a lot of muscle retention from my programme. Of course if the CV that's being talked about is the elliptihell and jumping around in front of a DVD then there is more need for structured resistance training.

nespinosa3

what does your current weight training consist of?

I do a 45 minute session of heavy weights. It usually has squats with a heavy bar, biceps/triceps, bench press, back exercises, etc.

Personally I don't do much resistance work; 2 sessions a week cf between 5 and 7 sessions of running, cycling or rowing. That's led to a reduction in my bodyfat percentage of 30% in the last year, I'm now in the low end of normal bodyfat. Clearly there is quite a lot of muscle retention from my programme. Of course if the CV that's being talked about is the elliptihell and jumping around in front of a DVD then there is more need for structured resistance training.

Right so my cardio is mostly Stairmaster or walking. Whenever I do these, it's at a slow pace such that I could carry on a conversation, but still enough that I am sweating and I would need to take a deep breath. I do them for about 50-60 minutes on most days. The group classes are more normal cardio and they last about 45 minutes, but I just do twice of these a week, at maximum.

MeanderingMammal

Right so my cardio is mostly Stairmaster or walking. Whenever I do these, it's at a slow pace such that I could carry on a conversation, but still enough that I am sweating and I would need to take a deep breath. I do them for about 50-60 minutes on most days. The group classes are more normal cardio and they last about 45 minutes, but I just do twice of these a week, at maximum.

So you're not getting a significant training effect from that then, just calorie burning rather than improving your fitness to any great extent.

To get quality from your CV work there are three types of session that you need to think about, each of which has a different effect on your system. The three are complementary and while you can do just one, as you are approaching now, the benefits aren't going to be as developed.

Long duration medium intensity steady state builds endurance. Medium intensity is more than you're doing just now,and the main effect is around improving exercise efficiency. As 3DogRunning identifies upthread you'll get more fat burning benefit just from upping your intensity in these sessions. For me these sessions are 90-120 minutes at between 150 and 160 bpm, running at around a 10 minute mile.

Tempo, or threshold sessions are generally shorter duration sessions at a higher intensity again, as you approach your lactate threshold you improve your ability to sustain higher intensities for longer. You're raising the threshold over time. Again for me a tempo session would be 10 minutes warm up at a 10 minute mile, then between 25 and 40 minutes at an 8 minute mile followed by another 10 minutes to cool down.

Interval sessions are much shorter sessions, either split between high intensity periods and recovery intensity, generally for no more than 15-20 minutes of intervals. I do three types, a 20 second interval with 20 seconds recovery, or 400 metres with 400 metre recovery, or a one kilometre high intensity followed by three minutes of recovery pace. I'll generally warm up for fiteen minutes and then cool down for another fifteen minutes after that. Those are all running, high intensity at absolute maximum effort with recovery at a 10 minute mile. These increase your maximum oxygen uptake, VO2Max, which has an effect on your base metabolic rate, essentially improving the calorie consumption of your system at rest.

You can do these on any type of machine. I run, cycle and row but it's broadly about the level of effort that you put in.

ndj1979

what does your current weight training consist of?

I do a 45 minute session of heavy weights. It usually has squats with a heavy bar, biceps/triceps, bench press, back exercises, etc.

I would suggest going to a three day a week heavy lifting routine and then doing cardio on your off days and try to have one, one hundred percent rest day each week….

Do you do deadlifts? If not, you should add them to your routine…

Strokingdiction

The 'fat-burning' mode on exercise machines is just a marketing ploy. You won't burn more fat in that mode that you would in any other.

That said, I'd follow ndj1979's advice.

nespinosa3

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Do you do deadlifts? If not, you should add them to your routine…

I will do them soon We started building up my strength (at the beginning I was so weak and out of shape that I really couldn't handle anything). But now I've been getting much stronger and we are definitely moving towards the harder stuff.

heybales

what does your current weight training consist of?

I do a 45 minute session of heavy weights. It usually has squats with a heavy bar, biceps/triceps, bench press, back exercises, etc.

Personally I don't do much resistance work; 2 sessions a week cf between 5 and 7 sessions of running, cycling or rowing. That's led to a reduction in my bodyfat percentage of 30% in the last year, I'm now in the low end of normal bodyfat. Clearly there is quite a lot of muscle retention from my programme. Of course if the CV that's being talked about is the elliptihell and jumping around in front of a DVD then there is more need for structured resistance training.

Right so my cardio is mostly Stairmaster or walking. Whenever I do these, it's at a slow pace such that I could carry on a conversation, but still enough that I am sweating and I would need to take a deep breath. I do them for about 50-60 minutes on most days. The group classes are more normal cardio and they last about 45 minutes, but I just do twice of these a week, at maximum.

That's a perfect workout actually to allow the best results from the lifting.

Why?

Your body is going to make the most changes from the lifting when you truly overload the muscles.

You ever done leg day after doing some intense leg stuff day before? You cannot push as heavy with tired muscles, no way around that fact.
Therefore you won't be overload the muscles with weight, but working while tired.

Body's fix to overload with weight is get muscle stronger, eventually build more, if diet allows.
Body's fix to overload with being tired is store more glycogen for longer endurance ability using existing muscles.

That fat-burning zone, which is a fad name, has been longer called the Active Recovery HR zone, because that's exactly what it allows. Recovery for muscles that need it - but enough active to get blood flowing and aid recovery.

But you need another day of lifting, 3 x weekly.

Log your workouts as strength training of course, and eat those calories back to keep your reasonable deficit.
Recovery and body changes are slower the bigger deficit you have.

The diet is still there, but with more need for repair from more lifting, it'll burn more on recovery days.

Keep the good cardio sessions to support a good hard lifting session. Allows not killing the repair going too hard, and killing a good workout by tiring out your muscles.

And while the HIIT fad has replaced the fat-burning zone fad, and while they both have their place, HIIT is for cardio folks that don't want to do a lifting workout.
Because is is as close to lifting as you'll get, and requires same recovery and not working same muscles daily.
If lifting - skip the HIIT.

Ditto to NDJ