If you’re trying to lose weight, you may face a dilemma — deciding between cardio or strength training. These workouts are the most popular, and without proper direction, it can be hard to know which is a better use of your time.
Fortunately, at Fog City Fitness, we have outstanding strength and conditioning coaches that can help you reach your weight loss goals. With over ten years of experience assisting clients to reach, maintain, and exceed their goals, we provide upscale facilities and solutions to help you achieve your goals.
Below, we explore whether you should consider cardio or strength training to lose weight.
While it’s not an exact science, researchers have looked into how many calories people burn while doing various activities. Researchers recommend using your body weight to estimate how many calories you will burn during different types of exercise, like cardio and weight training.
For most activities, the more you weigh, the more calories you burn. With this in mind, you will likely burn more calories per cardio session than weight training for the same amount of effort.
As mentioned above, cardio workouts burn more calories per session. But that doesn’t mean that weight training is far behind. In fact, it’s more effective than cardio for building muscle, and muscle burns more calories than fat.
Building muscle is key to increasing your resting metabolism — and ultimately, how many calories you burn when you rest. In addition, research has shown that you continue burning more calories following a weight training session compared to cardio. This means you don’t stop burning calories when your weight training session is done. You can burn calories for hours and even days after your complete a workout.
The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) found that weight training is not helpful for weight loss. However, it is vital because it can help improve your overall body composition, leading to a decrease in fat.
Recent studies have shown that overweight or obese adults who did cardio and weight-lifting lost the most weight and fat. They also have the best body composition changes that resulted from turning fat into muscle.
You will need to balance exercise with a healthy diet for long-term success. While you may think committing to a workout program is enough, it’s not. You need to pay attention to the food you’re putting in your body to optimize your progress.
Your ideal long-term weight loss program should include a moderate reduction in calorie intake along with a good exercise program that incorporates cardio and strength training. Studies have shown that the combination of dietary changes and exercise leads to 20% greater weight loss than dietary changes alone after a period of ten weeks.
What’s more, the programs that included both diet and exercise were more effective than diet alone at maintaining weight loss after a year.
If you’re ready to turn your life around and revamp your wellness and health, we have the best hyper-personalized weight loss programs in the Bay Area for you at Fog City Fitness. With over ten years of personal training experience, we can help you achieve goals you never thought possible and turn you into your best self. Schedule a free consultation now!
