Losing weight is a struggle; there’s no doubt about that. There are so many conflicting sources online about how to lose weight fast, most of which involve some form of skinny tea or detox product with sketchy reviews. Exercise is the only method that has consistently been proven to help people healthily lose weight. If you’re trying to lose weight through exercise, you just have to decide how you’d like to go about it.
Weight Lifting and Training
If you’re considering beginning weight training, you should know what the benefits are for your body. While cardio burns more calories per minute than lifting weights does, some studies have shown that training with weights regularly can help you burn more calories after your workout ends. Your immediate calorie burn rate depends heavily on your current weight and the speed at which you’re moving, but your resting calorie burn is almost solely dependant on how much muscle you’re building.
That leads to the second point. Weight lifting will build more muscle than cardio will. While this isn’t “spot training,” or losing fat in the place you lifted the weight, you will see a gain in muscle mass that gives you a slimmer appearance. Beyond looking slimmer, the muscle you build will continue burning calories after you’re done working out, making your body work harder without having to spend more hours in the gym. Weight training Mississauga can give you the benefits of a long workout with a shorter time span.
Cardio and HIIT
On the flip side, training cardio or HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) burns more calories per hour than weight training does. With cardio, the most important factor is consistency. Most experts agree that getting between 30 minutes and an hour of cardio in a day can help you lose both weight and inches. Similarly, incorporating HIIT into your normal exercise routine can help you burn calories rapidly. The intensity of these workouts means you don’t have to do them for as long as weight training, but they won’t build as large of muscles.
The bottom line? Both forms of exercise are good for your body. If you aim to lose weight and build your overall health, it is probably in your best interest to do a combination of weight training and cardio. Find a balanced routine that includes a session of cardio and also some weight lifting so you can burn the most calories and build healthy muscle mass.