weights vs. cardio

A lot of women are hesitant to include strength training into their workout routine. You really need it! Muscle will burn more calories than fat will. Muscle will also help your shape look better. We all know what fat looks like - cottage cheese! Muscle is lean and smooth! Strength training will also help your bones stay strong. There are so many other reasons to do it, trust me. I've even heard that if you can only do one or the other, choose strength training. Good Luck!

Hey Hey

Strength training alone won't make you grow large bulky muscles. Muscle growth is a combination of a few other factors, the main one being Over Eating which you won't be doing. Go on, throw that weight around, you'll feel stronger, more in control and you'll still lose your weight.

Only you will know what weight you can handle, the weights very on exercise.

Good luck

Muscle does not weigh more than fat. A pound is a pound. Muscle is more dense. You will not put on muscle if your eating at a deficit. Body builders eat an insane amount of calories to put in muscle. You'd have to eat a surplus to do the same.

Go for it!

The kettlebells are just as much a cardio workout as they are a weight work out (maybe even more so. The Russian navy used kettlebells for their main type of cardio training while at sea). And it is VERY difficult for a woman to get bulky. (please if there are any women out there who have bulked up and got big muscles naturally without the strict intention of doing so please put your hand up).

As the others have said, weight training is important and your body will thank you for it.

Just to add to what the others have said, strength training should always be incorporated into a weight loss routine because it raises your metabolism by helping you burn more fat at rest. Besides, muscle just looks good on people! I would much rather be sleek and toned, than skinny and yet still mushy.

Women need to do the following to gain bulky muscles: lift hard and heavy daily for hours on end...eat at a calorie surplus as opposed to a deficit...supplement with testosterone (some don't need this if they are genetically gifted in this area).

Women trying to lose weight eating at a calorie deficit WILL NOT BULK UP!!!

Don't be afraid of strength training. Your body needs it!

Everyone here has it right. Strength training is a must, if you don't do it when you lose weight you will lose fat AND muscle mass....and no one wants that. As Lyadeia said "much rather be sleek and toned, than skinny and yet still mushy"

Muscle does not weigh more than fat. A pound is a pound.

But, if you take the same volume of fat and muscle, you see that the muscle weighs 9.2 times more than the fat. And one pound of muscle is much smaller than one pound of fat. This is scientific fact. :flowerforyou:

I'm not arguing that. No matter how you put it, a pound if anything is equal to a pound of any other thing. Of course volumes and density will vary.

You might overall weigh more than you will if you only do cardio. Will that matter? I think runners care that they are light. If you are looking to be sleek and toned and healthy then don't worry, do it! I lived on a farm and worked my butt off. My Dad bought this old farm without any modern equipment to fill his dream of having a farm like his childhood. Yikes! They don't farm like that anymore! We carried huge buckets of water to the barn and pushed wheelbarrows up ramps to dump manure. Let me tell you I was muscular! I was higher than my BMI said I ought to be but I was small and short, tight and toned. I was very muscular, but not big and bulky. If anything I think I tightened in, not bulked up.

I lost a lot of weight later by eating very little once during a stressful time in my life. Again, small. Even smaller than on the farm. But no toning and no exercise. I was thin and bony.

This time I've lost by eating healthy, and started doing toning, too. Not excessive stregnth like at the farm. Not just sitting around low calorie eating. I am getting little muscles, and they are helping pull me in. Not bulk up. You will not be sorry you did. It's a good look, not a manly look, on a lady. It's also going to hold you up like someone said in the bone building area for when you are older so you don't become a frail old lady! Good for balance, and good to prevent injury. You will like the way it looks on you. You will like the way you feel, too.