Anyone maintain weight with weightlifting alone?

gemmamummy
gemmamummy Posts: 185 Member
in Goal: Maintaining Weight
Currently doing an all over weightlifting routine 3x week, with 20 mins cardio at the end. Needing to reduce the amount of time I spend at the gym and really detest cardio! I've been at maintenance for a year now and happy with how my body is. Does anyone else use weightlifting alone to maintain figure? What is your regime?

Replies

  • ndj1979
    ndj1979 Posts: 29,136 Member
    ummm weightlifting really has nothing to with maintenance…as longs your calories out = calories in then you will maintain.

    Obviously, if you stopped working out then your TDEE would be lower and you would have to eat less…

    so if you are going to cut back on time at gym then you should correspondingly cut back on calories.

    but lifting or not lifting does not impact maintenance….
  • auddii
    auddii Posts: 15,357 Member
    ndj1979 wrote: »
    ummm weightlifting really has nothing to with maintenance…as longs your calories out = calories in then you will maintain.

    Obviously, if you stopped working out then your TDEE would be lower and you would have to eat less…

    so if you are going to cut back on time at gym then you should correspondingly cut back on calories.

    but lifting or not lifting does not impact maintenance….

    Agreed. If you're looking to reduce your gym time and cut out cardio, you'll need to reflect that in your calories. And I would imagine that if you continue to lift at maintenance, your body is just going to continue to improve through the slow process of recomposition.

    More info on recomping: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10177803/recomposition-maintaining-weight-while-losing-fat
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,809 Member
    edited July 2015
    Your heart is a muscle too...
    Is there no cardio based activity or sport you actually enjoy?
    No journeys that you could make by foot or bicycle?
    "Cardio" doesn't have to be dull.

    If not, how about HIIT?
    True HIIT workout not playing at it like I see all too frequently in gyms!

    I'm not big a fan (it's pointless for me) but it's very time efficient. Would think a short amount of time a week would be enormously beneficial over dropping cardio exercise completely.

  • ShootingStar72
    ShootingStar72 Posts: 183 Member
    I do a short tabata or HIIT workout after lifting. Then I can check off my cardio and avoid the 25 plus min cardio I used to do. I'm not a huge cardio fan!
  • usmcmp
    usmcmp Posts: 21,219 Member
    gemmamummy wrote: »
    Currently doing an all over weightlifting routine 3x week, with 20 mins cardio at the end. Needing to reduce the amount of time I spend at the gym and really detest cardio! I've been at maintenance for a year now and happy with how my body is. Does anyone else use weightlifting alone to maintain figure? What is your regime?

    I was until I started bulking. The calorie intake was far more important than cardio as far as maintaining weight, but I do regret cutting out cardio because my lifts were better with it. I was lifting 6 days per week for almost an hour each session.
  • loulamb7
    loulamb7 Posts: 801 Member
    I've maintained for 18 months with only weightlifting (3x/week full body) as my primary exercise. Though I should include some type of cardio/HIIT. When I do, I would do it on non-lifting days and keep it short.
  • CaitieWev
    CaitieWev Posts: 2 Member
    It really depends so like you can do it but would recommend slowly decreasing the cardio and so on this allows your metabolism to adjust and so on it is a good plan as if you do so with no cardio your muscle mass may increase which needs more calories and you can eat more.
  • Samm471
    Samm471 Posts: 432 Member
    I'm going to be maintaining soon. I used to do 4 days of HIIT running and done this for 10 weeks solid and lost 18lbs I'm now changing and going to be doing 4 days of hitting certain muscles and one day of cardio. I will also add some moderate pace running at the end of weights and see how that goes for me
  • NightShiftMedic
    NightShiftMedic Posts: 59 Member
    Along the same lines as @usmcmp you're better off doing some cardio. Doesn't have to be much. Can you move it to a different day? Or as someone else mentioned find some other way of getting it that you like more than slogging away on a treadmill?
  • worldofalice
    worldofalice Posts: 148 Member
    People who are saying weightlifting doesn't affect maintenance, completely wrong. Just because MFP doesn't log the calories, doesn't mean they're not being burned - weightlifting increases your muscle mass, leading to increased metabolism so more calories burned throughout the day. You also continue to burn calories at an elevated rate for hours after a lifting session, as opposed to a cardio session where you stop burning as soon as you've cooled down. Not to dismiss cardio, it's all about balance. But if you're short on time, have you considered HIIT sessions? Short but effective.

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