Only Cardio or lifting too...????

If you're going to drop anything, drop the cardio. Lift heavy and keep your HR up.

This

Cardio definitely has its place. And no matter what people say, doing cardio is the fastest way to burn fat cells bar none.

The problem is that the perceived effort of doing cardio for long periods is pretty high and also can be pretty mind numbing which will inevitably put you off doing it. Not to mention that the amount of cardio you need to do to burn fat is at least 10-15 mins and the fitter you get, the longer you have to do cardio for (energy stores in your muscles improve the more you exercise which means it takes longer to deplete them, which means you have to exercise for longer to get to burning fat).

Which is why people advocate doing weights - the more muscle fibres you have in your body, the higher your resting metabolic rate which means you burn fat more even whilst resting. This has many benefits, not only does it burn whilst resting but it generally feels easier to achieve and tones up your body dramatically.

There is still a place for cardio in my opinion - but for me that place is definitely at the end of a session when you've already used most of your muscles stored energy so it's straight onto burning aerobically as soon as possible.

Funny, I've got friends who do only cardio and they aren't exactly atrophying like they'd been in a body cast, especially the triathletes.

Are they eating a deficit and losing weight though?

Over time, doing cardio without major strength training has the same effect on body composition as wearing a body cast.

For real??? Oh my, you don't say....cardio is the debil hisself!

".... without major strength training."

Context is important. It's why we're tested in reading comprehension as children.

No, I understood you perfectly fine. It just irks me that there's a huge hate-on for cardio on this site.

It's more the mentality that "If I run my a&$ off everyday I'll lose tons of weight and be toned at the same time" that's hated on. Look at many marathon runners. Many are skin and bones. Simply doing cardio will not tone a body or build any substantial muscle mass.

I just found a program online that I have started to follow and it has tons of advice on lifting heavy for women:

www.bodybuilding.com/fun/womans_lean_sexy_bible.htm

I have only done two workouts so far but I am feeling pretty sore today which is my rest day which means something good is going on! I finished my weight training with 30 minutes on the elliptical or treadmill. Oh and I have dropped 4 pounds this week since adding in the weights

Don't drop the cardio. Change up the cardio and do something different everyday. Do however Lift and Lift heavy. Sometimes having a good workout plan will help as well.

The current workout plan im doing has me do some sort of cardio each day. Let it be walking for 20 mins or running etc etc. Cardio will help burn the fat and lifting heavy will help tone you out.

"Which is why people advocate doing weights".... "it generally feels easier to achieve"

I lost 27lbs doing cardio and strength training and now I've entered a building phase of hardly any cardio and tons of heavy lifting.

Do a nice squat set for 12 reps, and then run a mile. Then tell me which one "feels" easier.

If you aren't experiencing discomfort when lifting, you aren't lifting enough

"Which is why people advocate doing weights".... "it generally feels easier to achieve"

I lost 27lbs doing cardio and strength training and now I've entered a building phase of hardly any cardio and tons of heavy lifting.

Do a nice squat set for 12 reps, and then run a mile. Then tell me which one "feels" easier.

If you aren't experiencing discomfort when lifting, you aren't lifting enough

Which is why I quoted that. Apparently some people don't lift enough/correctly. Hence the comparison between squats and running.

Cardio definitely has its place. And no matter what people say, doing cardio is the fastest way to burn fat cells bar none.

How so?

You can achieve the same deficit with diet alone, and it is deficit that causes weight loss, cardio only would lead to the loss of fat and muscle, strength training will limit the amount of muscle loss.

during my recent cut phase, I dropped cardio from 2xweek to once, and increased strength training from 3 to 4, and the results were great, at 33 I had my first 6 pack ever. The deficit 250 cals/day (0.5lb/week weight loss goal) is what caused weight loss and the strength training ensured that most of it was fat.

You can achieve a similar deficit with diet alone... However purely doing things with diet alone neglects what are some of the more important features of the bodys energy systems, and results in more often than not a lack of endurance and will eventually result in a plateau effect which will be more difficult to break out of as the energy systems within your body will become more untrained the longer you continue with only training your ATP and at a push your lactic acid system only.

ATP stores will be there, but the lactic acid/aerobic system crossover will be pretty terrible which will eventually make cardio feel like hell when you do get to doing it.

It's much better to do weights, then the required amount of cardio to keep your ability to generate energy from lactic acid and aerobic systems in check to make sure that when the time comes you can use your newfound muscles effectively.

Of course, if you're doing weights in supersets with little rest between then you can negate this and get a pretty decent cardio workout... But more often than not if you're lifting big you're going to need the rest between sets.

"Which is why people advocate doing weights".... "it generally feels easier to achieve"

I lost 27lbs doing cardio and strength training and now I've entered a building phase of hardly any cardio and tons of heavy lifting.

Do a nice squat set for 12 reps, and then run a mile. Then tell me which one "feels" easier.

If you aren't experiencing discomfort when lifting, you aren't lifting enough

Which is why I quoted that. Apparently some people don't lift enough/correctly. Hence the comparison between squats and running.

*shrugs* i can do several reps of squats with and without weights before i feel a thing my limit is really my hand strength since i dont have a barbell and yes i do them correctly i just have a a lot of leg strength and control but do not ask me to run a mile I couldn't do it to save my life at this point