Cardio vs Weight Lifting
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celitarichardson
Posts: 19 Member
I'm pretty sure this topic has been covered but I'm new here so I wanted to ask. I have had different people say the best way to burn fat is cardio while others say weight lifting. I do cardio and strength exercises. Will I burn fat efficiently that way?
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Replies
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Incorporate both and you'll see great results
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Arguably best cardio for fat burn is HIIT or interval training. Run 2 minutes flat out, then walk for 1 minute (adjust as necessary). It will make your muscles burn calories even after workout.
Lifting does this as well. I recommend full body lifting programs Starting Strength or SL 5x5 as you get more muscles burning energy after workout.0 -
Yea, that's 2 votes for doing both. Fat loss/weight loss comes from a calorie deficit. Cardio burns vastly more calories than strength training, but if you do cardio without any strength training, then you will lose a great deal more muscle than with strength training, and most likely you won't have the body you want when you're done, so it's definitely good to do both.0
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morowinder wrote: »Run 2 minutes flat out, then walk for 1 minute (adjust as necessary). It will make your muscles burn calories even after workout.
What you described is not HIIT, it's interval training, but it's not high intensity interval training. For the training to be HIIT, the high intensity interval must be limited to about 20 seconds or less. Any larger amount of time and you're not pushing your body or your heart as hard as it needs to be pushed to have effective HIIT. 2 minutes is waaay too long. Also, the EPOC (Elevated Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption) effect that you mentioned is way overblown and it's basically negligible. It's about 13% of total calories burned during the workout compared to 7% from steady state cardio.0 -
Do both! Cardio is a good fat burner, but it can burn muscle too. Strength train to keep and build muscle while burning fat. Plus, I've heard that some strength training moves continue to burn fat for a couple days, whereas cardio fat burning stops shortly after the exercise ends.0
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EPOC is greatly overstated.0
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I have just finished a weight loss challenge at my gym and lost 23.5 lbs in the six week challenge. I did win. What I did was the true Tabatha 30 seconds high intensity then 30 sec. rest. I did this for 5 intervals then 3 min. rest, then 5 more intervals and so on. I did this for 50 mins. The high intensity 30 seconds needs to be where your intensity setting is very high and you will be sweating a lot, keep a towel and plenty of water available. Now the most important is your nutrition. try to get 225 to 250 grams of protein a day. during the six weeks I kept my carbs fairly low no bread no pasta no sugar for the most part. fats are okay but try to use poly and mono unsaturated fats mostly. alright trying to keep my calories between 1200 and 1500 a day so it was difficult but it's only for 6 weeks. I hope this helped good luck.0
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I have just finished a weight loss challenge at my gym and lost 23.5 lbs in the six week challenge. I did win. What I did was the true Tabatha 30 seconds high intensity then 30 sec. rest. I did this for 5 intervals then 3 min. rest, then 5 more intervals and so on. I did this for 50 mins. The high intensity 30 seconds needs to be where your intensity setting is very high and you will be sweating a lot, keep a towel and plenty of water available. Now the most important is your nutrition. try to get 225 to 250 grams of protein a day. during the six weeks I kept my carbs fairly low no bread no pasta no sugar for the most part. fats are okay but try to use poly and mono unsaturated fats mostly. alright trying to keep my calories between 1200 and 1500 a day so it was difficult but it's only for 6 weeks. I hope this helped good luck.
Just about all of your advice on nutrition is garbage, and unhealthy. I'm guessing the OP is trying to lose weight in a healthy and sustainable way and is not competing in a weight loss challenge, so give advice accordingly please.0 -
celitarichardson wrote: »I'm pretty sure this topic has been covered
You are correct, several times a week in fact. All of the threads end up with different people saying the same things- Weight loss is about what you eat and exercise complements that
- Weight training is magic and burns calories for days after merely glancing at a barbell
- HIIT is magic and burns calories for days after a mere 7 minutes of activity
- Weight training and cardio have different effects and best results, for your objectives, come from a combination of the two
- etc
Most of the people who seem to know what they're on about advocate a balance of cardio and weights, in conjunction with diet.0 -
I have just finished a weight loss challenge at my gym and lost 23.5 lbs in the six week challenge. I did win. What I did was the true Tabatha 30 seconds high intensity then 30 sec. rest. I did this for 5 intervals then 3 min. rest, then 5 more intervals and so on. I did this for 50 mins. The high intensity 30 seconds needs to be where your intensity setting is very high and you will be sweating a lot, keep a towel and plenty of water available. Now the most important is your nutrition. try to get 225 to 250 grams of protein a day. during the six weeks I kept my carbs fairly low no bread no pasta no sugar for the most part. fats are okay but try to use poly and mono unsaturated fats mostly. alright trying to keep my calories between 1200 and 1500 a day so it was difficult but it's only for 6 weeks. I hope this helped good luck.
Just about all of your advice on nutrition is garbage, and unhealthy. I'm guessing the OP is trying to lose weight in a healthy and sustainable way and is not competing in a weight loss challenge, so give advice accordingly please.
I won't say it was total garbage... the first half was good enough.
What I know of and I thought he was wrong is:
* Protein intake in 'grams' should be somewhere around your weight in 'lbs'.
* keeping carbs low doesn't mean not having any carbs. Carbs are what give you energy for the day to day work!
* no bread? I suppose what he meant was, no 'refined floor'. Brown bread/ whole wheat bread are fine in moderate quantity. You need to have fiber too, right!
* If your daily calorie goal is 1200 calories, and you eat up to 1500-1600-1700 calories and exercise worth 500 calories and you are still on track (1700 - 500 = 0)
Don't stress too much on these things! stress is bad for you! start it light, build upon it as you progress!0 -
arian10daddy wrote: »I won't say it was total garbage... the first half was good enough.
Tabata for 50 minutes. I'd call that garbage.
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eboniivoried wrote: »Do both! Cardio is a good fat burner, but it can burn muscle too. Strength train to keep and build muscle while burning fat. Plus, I've heard that some strength training moves continue to burn fat for a couple days, whereas cardio fat burning stops shortly after the exercise ends.
"Do both" - yes! Different benefits.
"Cardio can burn muscle" - no, highly unlikely. Most likely way to lose muscle is through inactivity.
"Strength training to keep muscle" - yes.
"Strength training burns fat for a couple of days" - the effect is so small as to be irrelevant.
"Cardio fat burning stops shortly after exercise" - no, there's an EPOC effect from cardio too. A smaller percentage of a bigger number but again pretty much irrelevant.
OP -
Simple answer is do both strength and cardio for health and fitness benefits, enjoy what you do, challenge yourself.
Maintain a reasonable calorie deficit to reduce fat.
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Yea, that's 2 votes for doing both. Fat loss/weight loss comes from a calorie deficit. Cardio burns vastly more calories than strength training, but if you do cardio without any strength training, then you will lose a great deal more muscle than with strength training, and most likely you won't have the body you want when you're done, so it's definitely good to do both.
Thanks!0 -
eboniivoried wrote: »Do both! Cardio is a good fat burner, but it can burn muscle too. Strength train to keep and build muscle while burning fat. Plus, I've heard that some strength training moves continue to burn fat for a couple days, whereas cardio fat burning stops shortly after the exercise ends.
"Do both" - yes! Different benefits.
"Cardio can burn muscle" - no, highly unlikely. Most likely way to lose muscle is through inactivity.
"Strength training to keep muscle" - yes.
"Strength training burns fat for a couple of days" - the effect is so small as to be irrelevant.
"Cardio fat burning stops shortly after exercise" - no, there's an EPOC effect from cardio too. A smaller percentage of a bigger number but again pretty much irrelevant.
OP -
Simple answer is do both strength and cardio for health and fitness benefits, enjoy what you do, challenge yourself.
Maintain a reasonable calorie deficit to reduce fat.
I appreciate your simple answer. Everything else was confusing me.0 -
arian10daddy wrote: »I have just finished a weight loss challenge at my gym and lost 23.5 lbs in the six week challenge. I did win. What I did was the true Tabatha 30 seconds high intensity then 30 sec. rest. I did this for 5 intervals then 3 min. rest, then 5 more intervals and so on. I did this for 50 mins. The high intensity 30 seconds needs to be where your intensity setting is very high and you will be sweating a lot, keep a towel and plenty of water available. Now the most important is your nutrition. try to get 225 to 250 grams of protein a day. during the six weeks I kept my carbs fairly low no bread no pasta no sugar for the most part. fats are okay but try to use poly and mono unsaturated fats mostly. alright trying to keep my calories between 1200 and 1500 a day so it was difficult but it's only for 6 weeks. I hope this helped good luck.
Just about all of your advice on nutrition is garbage, and unhealthy. I'm guessing the OP is trying to lose weight in a healthy and sustainable way and is not competing in a weight loss challenge, so give advice accordingly please.
I won't say it was total garbage... the first half was good enough.
What I know of and I thought he was wrong is:
* Protein intake in 'grams' should be somewhere around your weight in 'lbs'.
* keeping carbs low doesn't mean not having any carbs. Carbs are what give you energy for the day to day work!
* no bread? I suppose what he meant was, no 'refined floor'. Brown bread/ whole wheat bread are fine in moderate quantity. You need to have fiber too, right!
* If your daily calorie goal is 1200 calories, and you eat up to 1500-1600-1700 calories and exercise worth 500 calories and you are still on track (1700 - 500 = 0)
Don't stress too much on these things! stress is bad for you! start it light, build upon it as you progress!
Thank you!0 -
celitarichardson wrote: »I'm pretty sure this topic has been covered but I'm new here so I wanted to ask. I have had different people say the best way to burn fat is cardio while others say weight lifting. I do cardio and strength exercises. Will I burn fat efficiently that way?
OP it really comes down to you goals. Heavy lifting in itself does not burn all that many calories and if anything I take MyFitnessPals estimate for how many calories I burn lifting and reduce it by 75% to be safe. I might spend 45 min to an hour lifting but how much of that time is resting between sets?
The thing is I'm not lifting weights to burn calories or lose weight, that's what my diet is for. I'm actually lifting weight to preserve muscle mass while eating at a calorie deficit.
If you simply want to burn more calories then cardio is the way to go, but personally I want to have some muscle still after I reach my goal weight.
Consider a good heavy lifting program for beginners, lots of good resources on this site to get you started!
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Just wanted to add, I agree with everyone else about incorporating both cardio and heavy lifting into your routine. ATM I lift 2-3 days a week and try to do 1-2 days of cardio if my legs are up for it.0
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Do both. Cardio burns fat. Strength training builds definition and both build healthy bones.0
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martinel2099 wrote: »Just wanted to add, I agree with everyone else about incorporating both cardio and heavy lifting into your routine. ATM I lift 2-3 days a week and try to do 1-2 days of cardio if my legs are up for it.
Thanks. My goal is to lose fat and tone my body.
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47Jacqueline wrote: »Do both. Cardio burns fat. Strength training builds definition and both build healthy bones.
Thank you
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