What to do first?

How much cardio? I've read differing opinions on this everywhere. I've even read that you can just lift and depending how much lifting you do, you don't need cardio (see 5x5 workouts).

IMHO, as long as you are doing something and doing it consistently, you'll be fine!

This is what I do.
1. 4 days a week I do cardio. Cardio is for burning through calories. I do it early in the morning so I'm in "fasting" mode and continue that fast for about 2.5 hours.
2. 2 days a week I lift. Since I'm eating at a calorie deficit, lifting gives my body a reason to maintain the muscle and use the fat.
Once in maintenance mode (LONG way from here) I'll probably split 3 days cardio, 3 days lift.
I'm down about 16lbs in 6 weeks.

urloved33 wrote: »

I do my strength training then cardio because to reverse it would leave me a bit weaker when I go to lift

Same here.

But, I've also been told to do cardio first then strength training, which does not work for my energy level.

Depends on goals: if losing/cutting, or strength is key goal, then lift first, I think heavy lifting is better for losing so prioritize that. If training for marathon, cardio first. You want to have the most in the tank for whatever is most important. Even better, separate them during the day and get the most out of both. Fasted training can then be done for both with careful meal planning (4-6 hrs without food is enough) if cutting. One more thing, lifting heavy when tired is a good way to get hurt or at least degraded form, so if you cardio first, keep the weights lighter and do higher reps.

As for how much cardio, I do 2x30 min HIIT/wk in normal mode, up that to 3-4x 30min HIIT when cutting. Too much cardio degrades lifting performance and body comp (again, a little dependent on goals.)