After letting my body slide for a bit I have finally decided its time to get back in shape. I find myself about 20-30 pounds overweight and my main goal is to lose the fat. I would also like to get stronger as well but my first and foremost goal is to lose the fat and the gut I've managed to put on. My question is to do this should I focus primarily on cardio. For example do maybe like 30 min a day of cardio and try to eat healthy or would it be beneficial to lift in addition to doing cardio. I am mainly unsure if I should do lifting in addition to cardio or just focus on cardio for now. Any advice is greatly appreciated. Also if anyone knows how much cardio a day is optimun I would love any advice. Thanks, Rob
Posted by: sftwrngnr
Hi Rob,
As a fellow "I'm making a change" person, I'll put in my .02. Personally, I much prefer to focus on lifting, and changing my diet. I currently do no cardio (I have found that after I'm done with an intense workout, my heart rate is at around 130 or so, up from a resting rate of around 80ish. In my book, that's enough cardio for me). Given that you said in your post that you wanted to increase strength, I would have a solid lifting regimen and dietary change as my focus, and evaluate adding cardio later if its necessary.
-Dan
Posted by: SJ69
Lift AND cardio. Lean muscle mass will increase your resting metabolism, helping you burn more cal's throughout the day. As you diet and cardio the fat will come off while firmer muscles will show though making you look more lean. I'd recomend moderately high reps to failure on most sets, maybe 8-15 reps. Make sure you keep the protein intake high while dieting else you risk loosing muscle mass to support your calorie deficit. A can of Tuna and a quart of skim milk makes a great, clean high protein lunch for example.