WEIGHT TRAINING OVER CARDIO FOR WEIGHT LOSS

If I were to choose between weight training over cardio for weight loss, I would choose weight training. The differences between the two are immense, and I will try explain why I chose weight training over cardio to help you on your way to a more permanent weight loss solution.

First we need to understand how we lose weight. Very simply it is summed up by energy (food) in versus energy out (exercise and metabolism). Your metabolism is determined by a variety of things, one of which is your muscle mass (the amount of muscle in your body). Everybody has a metabolism and the faster your metabolic rate is, means you will burn energy quicker. You may have been gifted with a fast metabolism that keeps you slim, or have a slower metabolism that makes that cake go straight to your thighs, in either case you can increase the speed of your metabolism if you train wisely. Let's look at the differences between the two training techniques and you can judge which one is best for you.

CARDIO training is what most entry level weight loss enthusiasts consider to be a great way to lose weight quickly, and I will not deny that this is true. You eat some food, you do some cardio and POW, weight loss. If you are to keep this routine up sure you will lose weight, but what if you don't? If you do, life is slim, if you don't, those kilos will come straight back when you start to have some dietary lapses (cheat weeks). Whilst you may be losing those precious few kilos doing your cardio training you are probably losing a very slight amount of muscle, muscle that is absolutely integral to how fast your metabolism is. Let's not keep cardio completely out of your weight loss equation though.

WEIGHT TRAINING is an entire different ball game. Weight training (or resistance training) can be done in so many different ways it can not only increase your metabolism on a permanent level, it can also burn as many, if not more calories as a hard cardio session. In order to gain muscle and increase your metabolism you need to hit the weights and train with a health and fitness professional to teach you how to do it. A good trainer can come up with a weight training routine that will not only increase muscle mass, burn more calories than cardio, increase your metabolism, but even correct your posture at the same time. This is why I recommend weights over cardio alone, but still think that cardio has an important role in weight loss. So if you had to do one or the other which one would it be?