Obese Weight Lifters or Cardio?

If you are extrmely overweight start with something easy like walking so that you don't hurt your joints. Once you have shed some weight and there is less pressure on your knees and what not, start doing some more intense cardio and incorporate lifitng. Both are important for weight loss, but if you lift too heavy while you are extremely overweight you risk injuring yourself and setting yourself back.

I started lifting when I was very obese (BF% was close to 44-45%) and have lost 42 lbs while keeping my calorie deficit and lifting.

You can definitely still lose weight lifting. The cool thing about lifting when you're big is that you're likely a lot stronger than you realize. Carrying around that much weight every day means you've got quite a bit of muscle mass underneath your fat. The trick is to learn to train it. Start light and work your way up, but definitely try it. You also don't have to make a choice. You can do both.

As long as you keep a calorie deficit, you will lose weight.

Both.

Neither lifting nor cardio will make you lose weight if you don't eat right. Food is 80% of the solution.

Lifting helps you build muscles, or if you're eating at a deficit help you retain muscles. Muscles are active tissue, meaning they need calories throughout the day just to exist. Fat is passive, it does not require any energy just to sit there. That means that a part of the calories you can eat in a day are based on the amount of muscle you have. The less muscles, the less you need to eat to maintain or lose weight.

If you're losing weight and you're not lifting, you are losing some of your muscles. Which makes your calories burned per day less and will have you eat even less to keep losing weight. On the other hand if you lift while losing the weight you'll mostly burn of fat, rather than a combination of fat and muscles and as a bonus you'll be able to eat more and have the same effect as without the lifting and eating less.

Cardio is not a bad thing, it helps your stamina, and it burns of calories. But it only burns calories while you're doing the cardio. The nice thing about lifting is that it will help you burn calories even when you're not working out.

So, to make it easiest on yourself to lose weight you want to start lifting straight away. But again, just lifting, or just cardio will not make your lose weight, it's the eating less that lets you lose. The cardio and lifting just make it easier to eat at a deficit.

Both, always both! You don't have to spend two hours in the gym everyday, but everybody should do both. Ease into both and as the weight comes off you will get into harder and heavier stuff. Respect and listen to your body, but please do both.

Lifting and walking, walking and lifting. Do both, but watch your food intake both is amounts and type!

Hi! I am in the obese category. I do both! You can't always tell by my exercise log, because I don't log it all, but I have been doing both since I started 2 weeks ago. It will be three weeks this Tuesday. I am already noticing small changes in my body.
My kids and husband have noticed that my shirts are starting to look baggy. If I can do it anyone can! Good luck on your weight loss!

Both.

THey do different things, and both are really important to good health.

Doing either of them, either alone or together, are not going to make you thin. A calorie deficit will help with that.

But even if you didn't lose a single pound, doing cardio to improve your heart and lungs, and lifting to keep your muscles strong - will make you healthier and less likely to experience any of the things that people think of when they hear "obesity." Exercise improves your body's response to insulin, makes your mitochondria more efficient, retains and builds bone strength, lowers cholesterol levels, improves mode, and staves off the cell death that causes aging. It improves cognitive functioning and may prevent alzheimers or slow its progression. You would experience all those enormous benefits before you lost anything at all.

Don't look at exercise as JUST something you must do to lose weight. That implies, among other things, that thin people must not need to exercise. Think of it as part of what you need to do to care for your body.

I started lifting when I was very obese (BF% was close to 44-45%) and have lost 42 lbs while keeping my calorie deficit and lifting.

You can definitely still lose weight lifting. The cool thing about lifting when you're big is that you're likely a lot stronger than you realize. Carrying around that much weight every day means you've got quite a bit of muscle mass underneath your fat. The trick is to learn to train it. Start light and work your way up, but definitely try it. You also don't have to make a choice. You can do both.

As long as you keep a calorie deficit, you will lose weight.

THIS.

A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

I do both, however I find that when I do a wee bit more cardio, I lose weight a tiny bit faster. But if I had to choose one or the other I'd keep lifting. I love lifting.

I started out at 490lbs, and did both the whole time I was losing weight. I spent about 50% of my gym time lifting and 50% doing cardio. The lifting will help you maintain your lean muscle mass while you are losing weight, and the cardio will help burn some extra calories and be good for your cardiovascular health. I still do both while maintaining my goal weight, but it's more like 70% weight lifting and 30% cardio now.

As other people have mentioned, your calorie intake is the key to weight loss.

I started lifting when I was very obese (BF% was close to 44-45%) and have lost 42 lbs while keeping my calorie deficit and lifting.

You can definitely still lose weight lifting. The cool thing about lifting when you're big is that you're likely a lot stronger than you realize. Carrying around that much weight every day means you've got quite a bit of muscle mass underneath your fat. The trick is to learn to train it. Start light and work your way up, but definitely try it. You also don't have to make a choice. You can do both.

As long as you keep a calorie deficit, you will lose weight.

THIS!!

it doesn't have to be an either/or

Do both. Assuming you do a proper caloric deficit diet, you will lose weight.

If you were sedentary for a very long time you need at least some cardio to improve your overall fitness, and at this point cardio is going to burn you more calories than lifting. However, you need to start lifting to fortify your tendons, ligaments, etc. in preparation for more intense exercises later.

I mainly lift, but I do a bit of cardio also.

Here is some info that might help you out: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/824518-fat-girl-dead-lifting?hl=Fat+girl+deadlifting