Is it possible to lose body fat by only doing cardio?

erickirb

Of course you can lose bf by doing cardio only provided you are in a caloric deficit. That being said if you incorporated strength training with that same deficit, your BF% will be a lot lower than cardio only, as without strength training your body will shed fat and a lot of lean muscle, whereas with strength training the amount of muscle you lose will be reduced.

So at your goal weight with cardio only vs. with strength training the cardio only you will have a much higher BF%.

belgerian

Ive lost almost 80lbs with primarly cardio (running) and monitoring my food intake. Now starting to do some resistance training. I find weight training very boring I love to run though. Gotta force myself

jennifeffer

Thanks for the replies. They've been very helpfull and the reason why i want to do cardio only is because i've always found weightlifting to be very boring. Is there anyway to do strength training without lifting weights? I heard that swimming is a good strength training exercise so maybe i'll try that

Buy a Jillian Michaels DVD. I'm doing extreme shed and shred right now. All you need is a couple of hand weights. Believe me, you won't be bored.

erickirb

Thanks for the replies. They've been very helpfull and the reason why i want to do cardio only is because i've always found weightlifting to be very boring. Is there anyway to do strength training without lifting weights? I heard that swimming is a good strength training exercise so maybe i'll try that

Buy a Jillian Michaels DVD. I'm doing extreme shed and shred right now. All you need is a couple of hand weights. Believe me, you won't be bored.

Those programs wont do much, as they are endurance training with weights, not strength training, though they will be better then no resistance training at all.

Onesnap

well strength training (particularly weight bearing exercise) is the only way to combat both bone loss and muscle loss that happens as we age. Why you would ONLY want to lose fat and not have the other health benefits of a balanced workout routine is beyond me...

Plus...boring.

Onesnap

Good question. What's the best way to strength train at home without expensive equipment?

Power Yoga.

$8 DVD.

RAFValentina

Short answer- yes. However, if you're not doing any weight/ strength training you'll be losing more muscle tissue as well. Add in some weights and you'll lose more body fay while preserving more of your muscles.

Not this exactly... If you do cardio you will burn fat...if you do lots of heavy cardio with inadequate nutrition you will lose SOME lean muscle tissue, but you will lose fat too... they key to it is do it in moderation but ideally with weights too and sensible eating /caloric control.

Ultimately you will use some energy from fat on any deficit be it from cardio or not!

BigAlfrn

Good question. What's the best way to strength train at home without expensive equipment?

pushups will do the trick at home. no equipment needed.

Onesnap

pushups will do the trick at home. no equipment needed.

That's not using your full body. Body weight training in the form of martial arts or Power Yoga is best.

KristysLosing

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you can lose fat hand washing my underwear .....ummm if your interested
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:laugh: Love it!!

Morgan103084

Quote:
Buy a Jillian Michaels DVD. I'm doing extreme shed and shred right now. All you need is a couple of hand weights. Believe me, you won't be bored.

YEP! i agree. i'm doing the ripped in 30. this one is done in intervals of 3 min. strength training, 2 min cardio and 1 min of ab work. its pretty intense, and you definitely wont be bored! and the DVD only costs 10 bucks, you can find them at Walmart and Target. if you don't have some light hand weights or don't want to buy them, use canned goods, problem solved!

crisanderson27

Good question. What's the best way to strength train at home without expensive equipment?

Body weight exercises. There are a ton of them out there, and if you need any equipment, is usually just a table or a chair. Combine that with a few weights, maybe a kettlebell or medicine ball, and you have your own gym!

Definitely.

Here's an excellent example of a home based STRENGTH training workout for you:

Some of you have been curious about my workout that I used to lose the initial 35+lbs at home. Well, it was 100% bodyweight based, no weights. I'll lay it out here:

This is your basic 5 x 5 template. (To clarify, 5x5 is 5 reps x 5 sets. The idea is to work at a difficulty level where you could only do maybe 7-8 reps on the first set, and are struggling to finish 5 reps on the last set). You would do strength training 3 times a week, say Monday-Wednesday-Friday with the weekends off. These are done "lazy circuits" style, with about 1 minute rest between each set (I use a FT7 HRM and keep my heart rate over 140). The explanations of the exercises you'll use for each group are farther below.

Workout A
1A. Knee dominant - 5 x 5
1B. Horizontal push - 5 x 5
1C. Horizontal pull - 5 x 5
2A. Ab - flexion - 3 x 5
2B. Ab - static 3 x 30 seconds

Workout B
1A. Knee dominant - 5 x 5
1B. Vertical push - 5 x 5
1C. Hip dominant - 5 x 5
1D. Vertical pull - 5 x 5
2A. Ab - rotation - 3 x 5
2B. Grip and neck training - 3 x varies

Exercise Progressions - with regular weight training you can just add weight to the bar. With bodyweight progression is mostly about changing your leverage. These are just a few examples, I'm sure we could come up with dozens more if needed. You can always add resistance in the form of a weighted vest or backpack or resistance bands.

Explanations of exercise in order of difficulty (easy-hard)
1. Knee Dominant -- squats, lunges, step-ups, bulgarian split squats, unilateral bent leg deadlift, partial one leg squat, one leg squat, box or stair pistols, full pistols.
2. Horizontal Push -- pushups, decline pushups, resistance pushups, side to side pushups, stair one arm pushups, negative one arm pushups, full one arm pushups.
3. Horizontal Pull -- body row, resistance body row, negative one hand row, incline one hand row, full one hand row.
4. Ab - flexion -- crunches, situps, resistance or incline situps, reverse situp, resistance or incline reverse situps, hanging knee or leg raise, hanging pikes, rollout from knees, rollout from feet, dragon flag. Also included are oblique moves like side lying crunches with or without resistance and side lying two leg raise.
5. Abs- static -- 4 point prone bridge, 3 point prone bridge, 2 point prone bridge, 4 point supine bridge, 3 point supine bridge.
6. Vertical Push -- pike pushup, hindu pushup, divebomber pushup, decline pike pushup, decline hindu pushup, decline divebomber pushup, one arm pike pushup, negative handstand pushup, handstand pushup with head touching floor, full handstand pushup.
7. Hip Dominant -- supine hip extension, good morning, one leg stiff leg deadlift, split one leg good morning, one leg supine hip extension, hyperextension, one leg hyperextension, natural glute-ham raise.
8. Vertical Pull -- jumping or assisted pullups, pullups, resistance pullups, side to side pullups, negative one hand pullups, one hand pullups. All these can refer to chinups or neutral grip pullups as well.
9. Ab - rotation -- twist crunches or situps, resistance or incline twist crunches or situps, russian twists, lying windshield wipers, standing rope rotations, hanging windshield wipers.
10. Grip and Neck Training -- for grip you can use handgrippers, deadhangs from a pullup bar (especially a fatbar or gripping a towel). For neck nothing beats wrestlers bridges. If you are involved in a striking martial art or sport, finger and fist pushups are very important also.

None of these lists have to end here. If you get strong enough you can always add resistance to your full range of motion one limb exercise. Or if you can do more than 5 one hand pushups do decline one hand pushups, or start working on one hand hindu and then eventually one hand dive bombers, and so on.

The nice thing about this routine is it scales dramatically depending on your fitness level. If you can't do even ONE regular pull up, you can scale it down and do assisted pull ups (legs on a chair), or ballistic pullups (where you jump to provide the initial momentum). It's actually easier to do properly when you're very unfit...because once you're healthy and strong...you're going to be searching for challenging enough exercises to only allow you 5 reps max by the finish of the 5 sets.

That program took me from this:



To this:



In just three months. That's basically 40lbs of fat.

I performed no cardio whatsoever, other than occasional tabata format intervals on my 100lb heavy bag.

roro73

Thanks for the replies. They've been very helpfull and the reason why i want to do cardio only is because i've always found weightlifting to be very boring. Is there anyway to do strength training without lifting weights? I heard that swimming is a good strength training exercise so maybe i'll try that

If you belong to a gym or can afford the home version, take a look at Les Mills Body Pump. I took a class the other day and it was not boring at all. It's resistance training plus you're moving so much I think it probably counts as cardio too.

Jersey_Devil

yes, you can...but its not going to change the composition of your body.

psuLemon

Yes because I've done it before.. but I was also eating a low fat diet

Dietary fat has NOTHING to do with body fat.

BuffyEat2Live

Good question. What's the best way to strength train at home without expensive equipment?

Body weight exercises. There are a ton of them out there, and if you need any equipment, is usually just a table or a chair. Combine that with a few weights, maybe a kettlebell or medicine ball, and you have your own gym!

Thanks for reminding me that I can strength train at home without a bunch of expensive stuff!

Push ups, lunges, squats...

Emancipated_Tai

Yes, I've lost 52 pounds just doing cardio. However, I am now doing more strength because I'm softer than I want to be. The only way to get that issue corrected is to strength train.

FYI: I lost about 10% of my body fat just on cardio alone!

KevinLamb77

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you can lose fat hand washing my underwear .....ummm if your interested
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that's greatness right there.

SPNLuver83

Yes, but you also loose lean muscle mass, which is where the problem arises, and strength training solves

KyleB65

I would say "yes". But, the risk is losing muscle mass at the same time.