HOW DID YOU DO IT??CARDIO OR WEIGHTS??????

Best success I had was when I would do weights for 60 minutes in the morning, go to work, then go back to the gym for cardio at night. This, plus a fairly clean diet helped me drop 40 lbs in 3 months.

dedication

This is truly what did it. If you don't have this, it doesn't matter what you choose.

Cardio and weights 25lb in 8 weeks

Losing weight is at least 80% diet. Measure everything & eat at a deficit.

Exercise is for fitness & health. To keep muscle (while on a diet) .....do strength training, eat enough protein, and keep the deficit moderate.

Cardio is for endurance & keeps your heart strong. I recommend you do both.

For weight control it's all about the calories. For fitness, stress relief and aesthetics, I do BOTH cardio and strength. :flowerforyou:

Losing weight is at least 80% diet. Measure everything & eat at a deficit.

Exercise is for fitness & health. To keep muscle (while on a diet) .....do strength training, eat enough protein, and keep the deficit moderate.

Cardio is for endurance & keeps your heart strong. I recommend you do both.

So true.

I mix them. So my weight routines are often cardio routines as well. Now if you are talking about just riding a bike or jogging, yes I do that to. So ALL of the above....

3 sessions weights, 3 sessions cardio and 1 rest day per week is typical for me.

Cardio is predominantly cycling but I also mix it up with rowing, elliptical and a tiny bit of running. Weight training is mostly in a circuit training style using free weights, machines and body weight exercises.

I do like a bit of variety to keep it fresh and challenging!

I have a question. I just read a thread about exercise regimen and it turned on a light bulb. What was the regimen for some of you when you first started? was it all cardio? was it some cardio and then weights? Cardio and weights at the same time?

Started as both - 3x a week cardio ("Learn to 10k" program) and 2x-3x a week lifting (StartingStrength/StrongLifts). I normally do the 60-90 minute workout first thing in the morning, before breakfast.

My goal was to become fit - my definition of fit requires both good CV health and physical strength - so I do both.

I'm out of the beginner stage, and now do 8 workouts a week, 5 cardio and 3 lifting. The cardio is also broken down into 80/20 steady-state and interval.

It's a process...a long, long process...! One nice thing about the cardio is it requires you to eat a LOT more food. So, yeah, there are days when dinner is a half-tub of Ben & Jerrys.

I see Cardio and Weights mentioned, but no Flexibility or Stretch sessions? Are most of you who answered past the need for Flex/Stretch routines?
I presently am doing 3 Cardio, 2 Strength (weights), and 2 Flex sessions per week. Am I overdoing it, or what?

My classes are Boot Camp, Body Chisel, Kickboxing (3 cardios); Burn Out Extreme (women's weight class 2x wk); and Pilates/Yoga Stretch (2x wk). If for any reason I miss a class, I ride my bike for 14 miles in 60 min.

Where I have my trouble is being sure that I get the right calories, or proteins in my eating. I work hard at it, but do not like to spend much time in the kitchen, cooking is not my thing.

I did cardio and weights to get back to a low weight. In Dec I started with couch to 5k so I did that 3 times per week and did weights once a week and then after a week or two of C25K when I was less sore and more used to that I did weights twice a week. I did the weights in the form of Body Pump classes and have done it religiously up until 3 weeks ago. I've started SL 5x5 (very loosely) and attending my weekly Body Pump class was too much so I dropped it because I reached the point where it wasn't safe or appropriate to use heavier weights anymore and I'm seeing more progress doing SL 5x5. I still run 3 times per week and do still do my weights twice per week. Sometimes three, but that's rare!

Done correctly, weights is cardio.

Done correctly, weights is cardio.

I have wondered about this too.

It's just a matter of training at a high enough intensity for the entire session, minimising rest time between sets, and/or supersetting - two sets joined together involving different muscle groups - in effect, the second half of the set becomes your "rest" period for the first set. This keeps your heart rate up throughout the workout. Circuit training uses the same principle.

No, that's not cardio. Steady state cardio results in very specific physiological changes inside your muscles, changes that do no occur with "stop/start" weight training.

Could you design a weight-based exercise to mimic that? Sure thing. And it would look a lot like a mechanical treadmill.

Putting aside your scientific reply, which I can't really argue with, for me I've been able to lose body fat and increase cardiovascular efficiency from high intensity weight training coupled with hardly any "steady state cardio". It's been working well for me. YMMV.

Mainly weights. I do weights with no rests 4-5x a week, and I try for at least 15-20 minutes of cardio 6-7 days a week. I don't count walking, hiking with the dogs, etc. I do body weight work/yoga after the weights, so I definitely get my flexibility in there. I love that part

It's one more day of weight training than I did a few years ago with great success, but I just threw in glutes on another day because if I have too many rest days I slack off too often switching them around. I can't do as much cardio as I'd like because my tendons/joints complain about it, but I'm trying to get so much muscle supporting things that it's less and less of a problem.

Edit: I don't have to change my diet very much. I have to watch my protein intake to get it up, and I have to watch desserts. Mainly I just have to keep the muscle on/be active and it allows me the difference in calories that I tend to overeat when I'm not working out. For me, exercise is the biggest part of the equation.