Is cardio or lifting better for fat loss?
Both, because they do different jobs. In an 8-month trial, cardio took off more fat than lifting, and lifting added muscle that cardio didn’t. The group that did both lost the most fat and the most from the waist. Neither burns as much as people expect, so what you eat still does most of the work.
What the trial found
In STRRIDE AT/RT (2012), 119 sedentary adults with overweight did 8 months of cardio, lifting, or both. Nobody changed their diet.
| Group | Fat lost | Lean mass | Waist |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lifting | 0.6 lb | gained 2.4 lb | almost no change |
| Cardio | 3.7 lb | lost 0.2 lb | 0.4 inches smaller |
| Both | 5.4 lb | gained 1.8 lb | 0.7 inches smaller |
Doing both didn’t take off clearly more fat than cardio alone, but it added muscle and shrank the waist most.
Cardio is like paying down a debt. Lifting is like building savings. You want both on the account.
Why exercise alone is slow
In another trial, adults burned 400 or 600 calories a session, five days a week, for 10 months, with no diet. They lost about 4% and 6% of their weight. That’s worth having, but it took nearly a year of hard sessions to do what a modest diet does in a few months.
What to do
- Lift two or three days a week to keep and build muscle while you lose fat.
- Walk every day, and add harder cardio if you enjoy it.
- Set your food first. The guide to moving more has the plan, and the fat-burning zone is covered in does the fat-burning zone matter.
2 sources
- Willis et al., Effects of aerobic and/or resistance training on body mass and fat mass in overweight or obese adults (STRRIDE AT/RT), Journal of Applied Physiology, 2012pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Donnelly et al., Aerobic exercise alone results in clinically significant weight loss for men and women: Midwest Exercise Trial 2, Obesity, 2013pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
