I want to lose weight. Do I need to do cardio or will strength training be enough?

Whether you've made a New Year's resolution or you've just been thinking about it for a whileyou've been thinking about how to actually train. Before you commit to going to the gym, it's definitely worth noting our article on gym etiquettewhich we recommend reading so you know what not to forget at home and what to expect from your first visit. But once you get to the gym, you still have the choice of doing cardio or strength training. Which is better for weight loss? That's what we'll look at within this article.

How does weight loss work?

If you're just starting out with exercise and haven't come across our no.article on weight loss in the new year, it's definitely worth taking a quick look at how weight loss actually works. Its essence is much simpler than most popular magazines often make it out to be. For one thing, there is caloric intake, which is a number made up of all the calories you take in from eating or drinking. On the other hand, there is caloric expenditure, which is the number made up of our sporting activity, any movement, and the so-called Basal metabolic rate, which is the number that indicates how many calories our body would need in a situation where it would not haveno other movement and would only have to expend energy to maintain basic life functions.

Well, if you want to lose weight, your caloric expenditure must exceed your caloric intake.which gives you basically two options (which are of course ideal to combine): You can either increase the amount of physical activity and therefore the calories expended, or you can decrease the amount of food and therefore the calories taken in.

Cardio or strength training?

So, at this stage of the article, it should be clear to you that both cardio and strength training increase your caloric expenditure and therefore help you lose weight. However, each of these activities does it a little differently and the result may be slightly different. Let's take a look at the basic differences:

Cardio

Cardio training is usually an activity that makes you more out of breath. It can include anything from cycling to running on a treadmill or outdoors to swimming, jumping rope or any other activity. You can read more about cardio as part of our article called Cardio under the microscope. Higher heart rate usually goes hand in hand with more shortness of breath rate, and therefore it might seem that this type of workout is a little better for burning fat. However, it should be noted that the exact amount of calories burned is defined by the age, weight and intensity of the workout for a particular person. However, some expert sources suggest that half an hour of cycling can make a personweighing less than 84 kilograms can burn about 294 kilocalories at moderate intensity. However, the result is still highly indicative, and what is considered moderate activity for one person may be an unmanageable pace for another.

Strength training

When it comes to strength training, of course, even that can burn calories, although there are considerably fewer at first glance. The above source states that, in general, moderate intensity strength training can burndepending on your weight between 90 and 126 kilocalories, which is of course much less than the cardio mentioned above. However, strength training has other advantages - for example, it leads to higher levels ofm EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption), which means that our body burns calories even after strength training is over. According to some of the research done, the increase in basal metabolism can then last up to 48 hours after the workout.

Which of these do you prefer?

If you wanted to make a purely pragmatic decision based on which activity burns more calories, cardio would probably come out better. On the other hand, there are two key variables to consider to get a more comprehensive view:

• Your goal - if you want to lose weight, of course, in theory just cardio is enough. But if you're more interested in some kind of physique strengthening, compensatory exercises to your dailym activities and a few extra pounds of muscle, without strength training it's probably very difficult to do without.
• Your preference - to be able to do an activity long term, you must first and foremost enjoy it. And if you have to force yourself into strength training, it's better to ditch it and do another activity, like walking, running or cycling.

So you should only get the answer to what's better for you by weighing these two variables.

How do you make it into one day?

If you have enough time to train, it is of course possible to do, for example, an hour of strength training and half an hour of cardio. And logically, this is a pretty good option that many people prefer, because that way they get the benefits of both of these types of exercise. On this topic you can read, for example, our article on How to combine cardio and weight training in one day,However, it is worth noting briefly that you should usually start with the activity that is more of a priority for you. If you primarily want to gain muscle, set aside more time for strength training and start with that. But if you primarily want to lose weight and you're more into cardio, feel free to spend an hour on the runon the treadmill and then just stretch with weights or machines for a while.

What to take away from this?

The main thing you should take away from this article is that cardio can burn moremore calories than strength training, but that's not the only criterion to consider. If you want to gain muscle and you enjoy strength training more, it's definitely the most important thing to consider in the long runlong term, it's a good idea to do it, even though it might burn a few less calories. If, on the other hand, you're more into cardio, there's nothing stopping you from going to the gym primarily for that. Or you can combine the two activities, which is what many gym goers do. So in short, the most important thing for long-term success is that you enjoy your chosen activity, otherwise you'll tire of it after a while.