Cardio and Fat Loss

erickirb

I personally believe that cardio is the most important thing when trying to lose fat. Yes, weight lifting helps with burning fat too, but (and as Tony Horton says) you need to get rid of all that goop in order for that lean muscle to burn the fat more effectively.

I recently started HIIT on my elliptical and have seen a difference. I usually do one minutes ITs, at 5-8reps and with my warm up/cool down its about 15min. This starts off my workout. Good luck!

Caloric deficit is what matters, you can achieve that with or without cardio.

d2footballJRC

I added a new pic so that anyone commenting could see where I am coming from.
I have about 45 pounds to lose, 5ft 2in, 45 yrs old. My main goal is stripping the fat, whilst maintaining as much muscle as I can.
I will also be doing HIIT and body weight exercises from home, but want to know how to tackle my morning cardio most effectively.

Is cardio the most effective fat-burner? Should I do 30 min-1hr morning cardio - 6 days on my treadmill? Should I even do cardio?
(Apart from exercising the rest of my day is sedentary. My calories are 1200 - something to change I think).

Cardio is not needed at all to lose fat. A caloric deficit is needed, cardio will just allow you to eat more to have the same size caloric deficit. The best for fat loss with minimal lean muscle loss is a slight caloric deficit (250 cals/day, 0.5lb/week loss, this can be done through diet alone, or a combination of diet and exercise), combined with a heavy lifting strength training program.

Cardio is great for increasing endurance, strengthening the heart, but is not needed to lose weight/fat, and even a lot of cardio can lead to the loss of lean muscle, depending on how you are fueling your body.

I would like to lose about 45lbs (20kg) and if I lost 0.5lb per week it would take me 90 weeks to get to goal weight. I don't think I could stand it. I think in kilos and that would be about 200g. I always thought up to 1kg (2.2 lbs) per week was a good steady weight loss.

You'll never keep 2.2lb per week coming off. Plateau's will be hit, and way too many variances. Go slow and steady, why rush. Especially if you are trying to keep muscle mass. Once you get to goal weight nothing changes you still have to work to keep yourself where you want to be.

suziecue66

Thanks for that Eric. Appreciated! At least I can get to goal weight (or close) by my next birthday in November.

d2footballJRC

I personally believe that cardio is the most important thing when trying to lose fat. Yes, weight lifting helps with burning fat too, but (and as Tony Horton says) you need to get rid of all that goop in order for that lean muscle to burn the fat more effectively.

I recently started HIIT on my elliptical and have seen a difference. I usually do one minutes ITs, at 5-8reps and with my warm up/cool down its about 15min. This starts off my workout. Good luck!

Caloric deficit is what matters, you can achieve that with or without cardio.

This! Add in the fact that weight lifting has been proven to burn more calories than cardio because of the increase calorie burning through out the day afterwards. I'll have to look that study up again.

bcattoes

the most effective is strength training then cardio, but if you want to do cardio you'll get a better burn from the high intensity , but a longer burn if you do weights then the cardio

I don't believe you get a longer burn from wieghts. Any prolonged intense exercise, including cardio, will cause an increase in metabolism for hours after you stop. 45 min of intense cardio can cause an afterburn (increased metabolism) of 14 hours or more after you stop. Cardio is great for burning fat.

suziecue66

I added a new pic so that anyone commenting could see where I am coming from.
I have about 45 pounds to lose, 5ft 2in, 45 yrs old. My main goal is stripping the fat, whilst maintaining as much muscle as I can.
I will also be doing HIIT and body weight exercises from home, but want to know how to tackle my morning cardio most effectively.

Is cardio the most effective fat-burner? Should I do 30 min-1hr morning cardio - 6 days on my treadmill? Should I even do cardio?
(Apart from exercising the rest of my day is sedentary. My calories are 1200 - something to change I think).

Cardio is not needed at all to lose fat. A caloric deficit is needed, cardio will just allow you to eat more to have the same size caloric deficit. The best for fat loss with minimal lean muscle loss is a slight caloric deficit (250 cals/day, 0.5lb/week loss, this can be done through diet alone, or a combination of diet and exercise), combined with a heavy lifting strength training program.

Cardio is great for increasing endurance, strengthening the heart, but is not needed to lose weight/fat, and even a lot of cardio can lead to the loss of lean muscle, depending on how you are fueling your body.

I would like to lose about 45lbs (20kg) and if I lost 0.5lb per week it would take me 90 weeks to get to goal weight. I don't think I could stand it. I think in kilos and that would be about 200g. I always thought up to 1kg (2.2 lbs) per week was a good steady weight loss.

You'll never keep 2.2lb per week coming off. Plateau's will be hit, and way too many variances. Go slow and steady, why rush. Especially if you are trying to keep muscle mass. Once you get to goal weight nothing changes you still have to work to keep yourself where you want to be.

Yeh, I tend to want fast weight loss which I usually accomplish but gain it back - I have been a yo-yo dieter for about 10 yrs. I started off about 10yrs ago needing to lose 23lbs and now it's 45lbs. A year ago I had 55lbs to lose - the highest amount. So slow and steady would have got me there I think. So I definitely need to change my ways.

erickirb

the most effective is strength training then cardio, but if you want to do cardio you'll get a better burn from the high intensity , but a longer burn if you do weights then the cardio

I don't believe you get a longer burn from wieghts. Any prolonged intense exercise, including cardio, will cause an increase in metabolism for hours after you stop. 45 min of intense cardio can cause an afterburn (increased metabolism) of 14 hours or more after you stop. Cardio is great for burning fat.

Cardio burns calories not fat, so you can do 3 hours of cardio/day and not lose any fat if you are not in a caloric deficit. the caloric deficit is what matters regardless if you do a lot or no cardio.

d2footballJRC

the most effective is strength training then cardio, but if you want to do cardio you'll get a better burn from the high intensity , but a longer burn if you do weights then the cardio

I don't believe you get a longer burn from wieghts. Any prolonged intense exercise, including cardio, will cause an increase in metabolism for hours after you stop. 45 min of intense cardio can cause an afterburn (increased metabolism) of 14 hours or more after you stop. Cardio is great for burning fat.

Cardio is good for burning calories, but the reason weights give you a longer burn was several reasons one of them being they spare your muscles more than cardio does. Also the repair of the muscles increases the afterburn even more. There is no doubt to the afterburn is from exercise period, I'm hunting down the studies but lifting was an increase over cardio by a decent margin over time.

To test this for sure I'm going to over the course of the next week.

Day 1. heavy lifting - wear monitor all day. (and pedometer to measure steps)
Day 2. cardio - wear monitor all day. (and pedometer to measure steps)
Day 3. D.B.'s take on crossfit - wear monitor all day.
Day 4. pure rest day. - wear monitor all day.

Repeat again to see if results are the same.

Will keep the work out times and time worked out the same. Will keep the time the same for everything.

suziecue66

the most effective is strength training then cardio, but if you want to do cardio you'll get a better burn from the high intensity , but a longer burn if you do weights then the cardio

I don't believe you get a longer burn from wieghts. Any prolonged intense exercise, including cardio, will cause an increase in metabolism for hours after you stop. 45 min of intense cardio can cause an afterburn (increased metabolism) of 14 hours or more after you stop. Cardio is great for burning fat.

Cardio is good for burning calories, but the reason weights give you a longer burn was several reasons one of them being they spare your muscles more than cardio does. Also the repair of the muscles increases the afterburn even more. There is no doubt to the afterburn is from exercise period, I'm hunting down the studies but lifting was an increase over cardio by a decent margin over time.

To test this for sure I'm going to over the course of the next week.

Day 1. heavy lifting - wear monitor all day. (and pedometer to measure steps)
Day 2. cardio - wear monitor all day. (and pedometer to measure steps)
Day 3. D.B.'s take on crossfit - wear monitor all day.
Day 4. pure rest day. - wear monitor all day.

Repeat again to see if results are the same.

Will keep the work out times and time worked out the same. Will keep the time the same for everything.

Keep us updated!

bcattoes

the most effective is strength training then cardio, but if you want to do cardio you'll get a better burn from the high intensity , but a longer burn if you do weights then the cardio

I don't believe you get a longer burn from wieghts. Any prolonged intense exercise, including cardio, will cause an increase in metabolism for hours after you stop. 45 min of intense cardio can cause an afterburn (increased metabolism) of 14 hours or more after you stop. Cardio is great for burning fat.

Cardio burns calories not fat, so you can do 3 hours of cardio/day and not lose any fat if you are not in a caloric deficit. the caloric deficit is what matters regardless if you do a lot or no cardio.

Correct, that was pretty much what I meant. Strength training and cardio both burn calories, and both can burn fat. The biggest difference in the 2 has little to do with fat and more to do with how much muscle you have left after you've burned off the fat.

d2footballJRC

Interesting article.

http://nerdfitness.com/blog/2010/02/01/what-burns-more-calories-cardio-intervals-or-weight-training/

Some key points.

They compared Cardio, HIT, and Weight training against each other.

The continuous group exercised for 40 minutes at a consistent rate. At the end of the study, the women in the interval group had lost three times the body fat as the women in the continuous exercise group. (An interesting note: the interval group’s loss in body fat came mostly from the legs and buttocks area.)

The weight training group lost 21.1 pounds of fat (44% and 35% more than diet and aerobic only groups respectively). Basically, the addition of aerobic training didn’t result in any real world significant fat loss over dieting alone.

KEY POINTS AT THE END:

Do cardio if:

You really enjoy the treadmill or elliptical, or you just really like running
You have all the time in the world
You’re just getting started and don’t really know what you’re doing

Do HIIT if:

You don’t like lifting weights, but you still want to burn calories as quickly as possible
You only have a limited amount of time every day
You like pushing your body to its limits.

Do circuit weight training if:

You want to build muscle while burning calories
You like burning calories while sitting on your butt.
You’re not afraid of lifting weights.

d2footballJRC

According to Mayo Clinic:

According to Mayo Clinic.com, a 160-pound person performing a weight lifting workout uses 219 calories per hour. However, a 240-pound exerciser expends 327 calories an hour doing the same workout.

A 160-pound person who jogs for an hour uses 584 calories, while the 240-pound exerciser uses 872 calories per hour, according to MayoClinic.com. By session, cardiovascular workouts clearly burn more calories than weightlifting exercise.
Post-Exercise Burn

"While it is evident that cardiovascular exercise burns more calories than lifting weights, the amount of calories burned after weight training is higher," reports the CTER Eportfolio System website. Metabolism increases after cardiovascular exercise only lasts 30 to 60 minutes on average, whereas post weight training metabolism increases up to 48 hours.

BOLO4Hagtha

Edit - said a search Tony Horton - P90X

That's him! I'm currently doing P90X and I love it (there isn't enough cardio there so I do my 15min elliptical HIIT).

bcattoes

According to Mayo Clinic:

According to Mayo Clinic.com, a 160-pound person performing a weight lifting workout uses 219 calories per hour. However, a 240-pound exerciser expends 327 calories an hour doing the same workout.

A 160-pound person who jogs for an hour uses 584 calories, while the 240-pound exerciser uses 872 calories per hour, according to MayoClinic.com. By session, cardiovascular workouts clearly burn more calories than weightlifting exercise.
Post-Exercise Burn

"While it is evident that cardiovascular exercise burns more calories than lifting weights, the amount of calories burned after weight training is higher," reports the CTER Eportfolio System website. Metabolism increases after cardiovascular exercise only lasts 30 to 60 minutes on average, whereas post weight training metabolism increases up to 48 hours.

There was a controlled study done in NC a few years ago where male participants were fed a controlled diet and exercised (exercise bikes were used) in controlled intervals of 45 min. 100% of the participants had an afterburn. The average time of increased metabolism was 14 hours. I can't remember who did the study but I'm sure you can Google it if you are interested.

d2footballJRC

According to Mayo Clinic:

According to Mayo Clinic.com, a 160-pound person performing a weight lifting workout uses 219 calories per hour. However, a 240-pound exerciser expends 327 calories an hour doing the same workout.

A 160-pound person who jogs for an hour uses 584 calories, while the 240-pound exerciser uses 872 calories per hour, according to MayoClinic.com. By session, cardiovascular workouts clearly burn more calories than weightlifting exercise.
Post-Exercise Burn

"While it is evident that cardiovascular exercise burns more calories than lifting weights, the amount of calories burned after weight training is higher," reports the CTER Eportfolio System website. Metabolism increases after cardiovascular exercise only lasts 30 to 60 minutes on average, whereas post weight training metabolism increases up to 48 hours.

There was a controlled study done in NC a few years ago where male participants were fed a controlled diet and exercised (exercise bikes were used) in controlled intervals of 45 min. 100% of the participants had an afterburn. The average time of increased metabolism was 14 hours. I can't remember who did the study but I'm sure you can Google it if you are interested.

Maybe so but the Mayo clinic did a pretty large study and it showed a large increase in the afterburn from those who did weights vs those who did straight cardio. In return did a large increase in weight loss.

I think as with everything you want to do both, you don't want to strain you body lifting every day and I like to do a bit of cardio during those days. Get the best of both worlds that way.

PatrietteAz

Careful what you read and try on forums like this. There is a lot of misinformation in some of these responses!!

Several folks know what they are talking about, I think you can see which.

You should do cardio and some strength training for fitness for the rest of your life for both fat loss and better overall health. Sounds like you are on the right track. Good luck!