cardio or weights for losing weight.
30 years of trending weight loss programs and home workout videos make it clear that cardio is the key to losing weight. But research has evolved, and with it our understanding of how people can work to change their physique. And it turns out that cardio and weightlifting alone aren’t enough to get there — you’ll lose weight by doing both.
What is essential for losing weight besides the exercises? A calorie deficit. Make it easier for yourself and supplement your diet. This way you stay in a calorie deficit and still get the best ingredients.
Table of Contents
The formula for losing weight
What the science says?
Cardio training is beneficial for the body in many ways. For example, it promotes cardiovascular health, helps the body regenerate cells faster ( mitochondrial biogenesis ).
So, while removing the damaged or dysfunctional cells, improves sleep, reduces stress, increases overall energy, improves that cholesterol and mental health .
And of course it burns calories and can help burn body fat. The next obvious question: what type of cardio is best? That’s hard to answer. Ideally, cardio should be consistent and fun (these two things go hand in hand).
The number of calories burned depends on factors such as your genetic profile, starting weight, height and training intensity. Although running, biking, walking, and swimming are the most popular types of cardio exercise, cardio in gym is most common on machines. Treadmills, stationary bikes, cross trainers and step machines are just a few of the options you have there. There are generally a few forms of cardio workouts: low-to-moderate intensity cardio and high-intensity interval training.
Clearly: With cardio you burn additional calories – an advantage that you should not underestimate, because our calorie consumption has fallen quite a bit in the last few decades .
The consequence of this lack of exercise is a society with obesity and cardiovascular diseases. To counteract this, the World Health Organization recommends 150 minutes moderate endurance training (jogging, walking, swimming) or 75 minutes of intensive endurance training per week.
Burning calculation.
One kilogram of body fat is around 7,000 calories that you have to save. So to lose 1 pound of body fat , you would need 3,500Consuming more calories than you take in from food. In order to achieve this additional consumption via cardio units, you would have to burn 500 additional calories through your cardio units seven days a week.
Endurance Training
To get to the point where your body begins to burn fat faster — also known as the “fat burning zone”.
You should exercise for at least 20 minutes with a heart rate of 110-130 beats per minute. As you do so, your body begins to get more energy from fat. However, this method does not burn as many calories as the high-intensity method.
High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
As you now know, cardio training is divided into moderate basic endurance training and high-intensity training. Both types of training have their advantages: basic endurance improves the oxygen absorption capacity of the cells, trains the fat metabolism so that you can do without carbohydrates for a longer period of time during training and creates the basis for all other types of training, HIIT makes you faster and acts like a booster on your metabolism.
This method allows you to burn even more calories. To do this, you have to push your body to its limit for a short time, followed by relatively long recovery periods. By alternating between exertion and rest, your body continues to burn calories even when you’re not exercising. There are many different ways to do HIIT such as: B. Running training with hill intervals or Tabata. Exercising like this for 15 minutes is enough to boost your metabolism. The length of each interval depends on your training status.
And as you improve your cardio fitness, you’ll find these health markers improve even if you don’t see any change on the scale. And now comes the consistency part: the researchers are finding that “weight fluctuations” — meaning constant gaining and losing weight — are associated with a range of health problems, including an increased risk of death.
It’s hard to separate exercise and weight loss, but try to focus on the post-cardio feeling that will help you stay motivated , even if you’re a little discouraged at the sight of the scale.
And there are many different cardio workouts to try – you can find out more about them here . And this can also be an opportunity to change your diet . No amount of indoor cycling classes can make up for poor nutrition.
It might be high time to take a look at how much alcohol you’re drinking, how much fiber you’re consuming, and whether you’re eating enough protein .
And what about strength training?
While strength training doesn’t have a reputation for burning as many calories as cardio, it’s essential to achieving your body composition goals. Muscle usually weighs more than fat, but it burns more calories at rest as well. If your muscle mass increases, your resting metabolism will also be boosted.
How else does this affect the body?
One way to determine overall health and link health measures to physique is insulin resistance. This occurs when cells in muscle, fat, and liver are not responding in good way to insulin.
And when they cannot readily take up glucose from the blood.
Then, when the body can’t process the sugar, it stores the excess as fat. A study by Brigham Young University in Utah found that men who reported no resistance training were two and a half times more likely to have insulin resistance than men who reported frequent resistance training. (The women in the database did not appear to have the same association between strength training and insulin resistance).
Not only does strength training help with weight management, but it’s also important for maintaining strong bones, especially important for women going through menopause.
And can help manage chronic diseases, including inflammatory conditions like arthritis, back pain, depression, and heart disease. Oh, and there’s reason to believe that strength training also boosts self-esteem .
The best option: combine both!
The best way to succeed is to vary between different forms of cardio and strength training. In a US-New Zealand study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, weight, bone mineral density, and strength were measured in 141 obese older adults to place them into one of four groups: aerobic, resistance training , a combination of aerobic and resistance training, or control .
Six months later, the greatest improvements were seen in those who did both aerobics and strength training: They had better oxygen consumption, were among the best in strength, lost less lean mass than the aerobics group, and had less bone loss to record.
Long story short, when you combine cardio with strength training, you get the best of both worlds! If you want to do both on the same day, start with strength training. It requires more precise movements, and fatigue increases the risk of injury. You can then continue with the cardio training.
And with all that training, don’t forget to give yourself time to stretch and recover—keyword: vinyasa yoga? And of course a balanced diet.
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