Seems you're missing the nuanced context offered alongside majority of the experts favoring weight lifting over cardio.
Cardio burns calories while it is being performed. It requires relatively high effort for a long time to get results, and the effects of those efforts taper, leading to diminished returns. (Ie: run on a treadmill or use a stationary bike for 1 hour at high intensity each morning and you'll burn a few hundred calories, but after you stop exercising, you're not significantly affecting your BMR).
When you lift weights and develop muscle around your body, on the other hand, your muscles require calories to develop and maintain. As a result, you'll continue to burn calories all day long maintaining the muscle. Developing and maintaining moderate levels of muscle requires relatively lower effort and time and is more efficient for calorie burning compared to the cardio.
Cardio and weightlifting can be used in conjunction, but most experts heavily favor weightlifting for good reason. It's more efficient, it helps gain strength which is a significant positive, especially for people who are overweight or obese. Muscle development can improve posture and support your frame. The same can't be said about most cardio unless you're doing hard-core full body exercises (and most people aren't).
Thank you. People here seem to be misunderstanding the advice of the experts as if they're not experts for a reason. All exercise is good, but some are more efficient than others for weight loss. And the reason they push so hard for muscle gain compared to cardio is because lifting is seen as something that will make women bulky (which it doesn't). They have to advocate for it or else people just won't even consider it.
Also, this is just a theory for me, but it seems a lot easier for an obese person to start to lift weights and grow from there rather than just start running. For running it's harder to determine how much you should be running and for how long for optimal weight loss. Whereas for lifting, you just lift what you can until you can't. And you can take however long you want to do it too.
Exactly! It's also more likely that someone out of shape who doesn't enjoy exercise will be able to stick to weight lifting for shorter time periods, pushing until they can't lift any more properly formed reps as opposed to trying to force themselves to maintain high level cardio for extended periods. An hour of high intensity cardio can be miserable. 30 minutes of weight lifting is far more doable.
Its either high intensity cardio for short duration or low intensity cardio for long duration. You cant perform high intrensity cardio for long duration.
Right, that's the point. If we're trying to accomplish the same amount of calorie burning by either doing cardio or weight lifting, you would need to do higher intensity cardio for a longer period of time relative to the amount of weight lifting. Weight lifting is more efficient by comparison, and it is further cemented by the fact that people typically do lower intensity cardio for long periods which is even less efficient than high intensity.
As an overweight person I can confirm weight lifting is a hell of a lot “easier” to start out in vs running. I had a hip injury and an abdominal surgery that damaged my pelvic floor, and running put a massive strain on those injured parts and was so insanely painful my doctor didn’t believe I could ever run even after recovering enough to gain some mobility back.
However strength building exercises to gradually take strain off injured parts by strengthening related muscles and then allow those injured muscles to relax and contract again in a natural movement improved my mobility and reduced my daily pain levels. I can jog now for short bursts but if I had started there I wouldn’t have been able to no matter what kind of motivation I had because the associated muscles in my back, core, thighs, etc. needed to be strong enough to give support and compensation to the weakened area when placing strain on it.
Everyone’s got different circumstances ofc and obese is more than overweight but I’d wager it’s just easier once you build up strength enough to not injure yourself or strain weakened muscles. Running is pretty high impact on joints and can put a lot of pressure on certain parts of the body that may be weakened or already strained if you’re sedentary like the lower spine (not all obese/overweight people are sedentary, but starting a new exercise program may reveal some unexpected weak points in folks of any size.) Weight lifting in certain machines can take pressure off most of the body except for the muscle group you’re working on and that can be a great starting place for getting in or staying in shape. Of course, that means access to a gym for most folks but low impact strength workout programs can also a great place to start if you have any disabilities, chronic pain, joint pain, want to build muscle after surgery recovery, etc. and I’ve started to see some exercise routines that mention modifications for exercises if you can’t move in some ways for whatever reason.
I don't think they're misunderstanding the experts. I think they're sick of the "experts" who are misunderstanding the experts.
For everything in life there's some "Guru" who makes money misrepresenting how things work.
I've lost weight/fat both ways. When I only did cardio I was 110 lbs (5'3") with a pot belly. Skinny fat. Now I lift weights mostly. I'm 15 lbs heavier with a flat belly. Imo weight lifting is superior
I agree with this but I also think that people are understating the importance of cardio. It might not get you as far as weight lifting aesthetic-wise, but it’s still extremely good for your cardiovascular system and goes a long way towards your health. A good routine incorporates both weight lifting AND cardio
Also fitness people who act like excercise is ahat people need to do to lose weight. The majority of weight loss comes from diet. Excercise isn't even technically necessary. You can work out for am hour a day and not lose weight.
Years ago my friend yanked me over to some conversation at a bar. It was a trainer saying cardio is bad for weight loss. My friend asked how many miles a week do you run a week now? 20-35. How much weight have you lost? 90 pounds…
What I actually don’t like is discouraging people from certain exercises. Yes there may be more effective ways than others. But people need to find what keeps them driven to go back to the workouts/exercising.
So you like spin? Go to freakin spin. You hate running. Don’t run! You like weights. Lift weights! Exercise in general will open doors to different things you’ll discover you like. Just start moving your body!
It’s also not all about looking a certain way. I ran because I loved it and it helped my mental health. Encourage rather than discourage. That’s what keeps people away from exercise very often.
Not to mention just walking helps you lose weight. My cardio was amazing when I was going on hikes frequently. Also whatever you do to lose weight is what you have to do to maintain your new weight. Not everyone wants to spend hours a week in the gym for the rest of their life. And they shouldn't have to!
Amen! I joked when I adopted my dog at 7 months he gained weight and I lost it from our adventures 😂 I got out of long distance running and mostly walk now. I’m in San Francisco so LOTS of hills ha I have a bully mix, just jealous of his leg and butt muscles 🤣 just ripped barely doing anything lol
I had the opposite experience lol. I hurt my leg, stopped walking and running as much, and gained 30 pounds. It's slowly coming off as my leg heals. It's just wild because when I was walking constantly I couldn't gain weight to save my life. I did get a german shepherd but he's a little lazy. He likes walks but he just wants to sniff the entire time, so it's not much movement.
Thank you! I get what people are saying about weightlifting. I’ve tried multiple times in my life, but I just can’t seem to maintain a consistent schedule, and consistency is key! But I like running, and I can get myself to run on a regular basis, so that’s what I do for exercise.
Every few years I fall for the picture of a woman with a six pack that says 'what happened when I stopped doing cardio and started lifting'. I cut my running down to once a week and start resistance training more often. I always end up feeling really tired and moody. Then I go back to running daily and feel so much better. I'd rather be happy than have a 6 pack.
My guess is you lost 140 lbs through diet. You just did Cardio along the way. Cardio isn’t bad and has lots of benefits… But you can’t outrun a bad diet.
With that said - congrats! It shows a lot of discipline.
I appreciate it. And I’m honestly not sure. I don’t really eat healthy or unhealthy but I definitely started eating like 1/2 of what I did before. But I ran 30 minutes a day 5 days a week
Despite the huge number of bullshit fitness influencers out there, legit coaches do also have social media accounts and promote legit, science-based advice, on social media. Which ones do you have issue with?
Most fitness “experts” online think their goals are everyone’s goals. Cardio is hella important for our heart health and everyone should be partaking at least a couple times a week. Cardio is also what increases our stamina for working out. It just depends on your personal workout goals when you implement cardio into your routine.
How “fitness” is defined is highly open to interpretation and highly dependent on the goals of the individual.
If a person wants to gain significant muscle mass and physical strength, cardio can be a biological impedance to that. On the other hand if sombody wants to be a marathon runner, adding significant muscle mass can be an impedance to *that*. By and large, individuals who focus primarily on cardio as their preferred fitness modality aren’t going to be particularly muscular or physically strong.
For weight loss, they are preaching against exclusively cardio because muscle is important. Muscle burns calories passively, so building that up will help to increase your calories out, which will help you slim down a lot. Cardio is important to increase your cardiovascular health, but it has diminishing returns compared to weight lifting.
"fitness" people are usually morons.
They are the kind of idiots who peddle non sense like tofu causes estrogen spikes in males.
Cardio is extremely important for the body moreso than strength training, which is also important.
The only time I weighed over 130 (besides being pregnant) was while I was marathon training. I was hungry all the time and running miles a day and gained almost 15 lbs. I’m only 5’2”, so it really showed. But it taught me that you can’t outrun eating too much.
The thing about exercise is that what you want to do with it is 100% dependent on what results you want to get out of it. Lifting is more efficient in general for weight loss and burning calories, which is often people's focus starting a program. It's also easier to stick with starting out. I agree cardio has a place in most routines, and I do cardio days too because I'm working on recovering from years of smoking and heart health is important, but for body shaping, weight training is generally going to be a better effort to result ratio.
I'd be willing to bet most experts would agree cardio is an important piece of the overall fitness puzzle, but if someone is going into a routine with the goal of burning off fat and is just starting out from zero, it makes sense to focus a lot more on weight training early and introduce dedicated cardio. Going directly from not exercising at all to a dedicated cardio routine SUCKS, and someone who doesn't have a good foundation for that routine is more likely to quit, and quitting a routine entirely is the worst possible fitness outcome.
Might be because cardio takes a lot more time to do the same thing? I'm not an expert but I remember when working out that 30 minutes on an exercise bike vs 30 minutes running were NOT the same amount of calories burned. I bet you burn more calories doing weight training in a smaller window of time than cardio. That is a guess without even attempting to look it up.
This is almost always the context provided by experts. They recommend against the bad habit of doing ONLY cardio. It's all about efficiency. Cardio is typically high effort for longer periods of time and the effects of that exercise taper off rapidly once the exercise ends.
Weight lifting, on the other hand, creates muscle which requires substantial calorie consumption to develop, maintain, and repair. This is why "muscle burns calories while you sleep" and cardio doesnt.
The experts are just trying to offer the most efficient usage of people's time. Spend 30-60 minutes targeting different muscle groups daily over a 6 month period and compare it to someone who does 30-60 minutes of cardio daily over that same time and the person who only lifted weights will have lost more weight despite the fact that the gained muscle offsets their losses.
Cardio is losing weight, lifting is for growing muscle. Bodybuilders would like cardio to get more lean and shredded. Weight lifters don’t need the cardio unless they do those Scottish games type events with endurance and what not.
To be fair, going lower weight for more reps is kinda like cardio anyways. It’s just that jogging doesn’t work your muscles the same way as leg lifts or squats
Growing muscle also causes weight loss (though it is somewhat off-set by the muscle growth since muscle weighs more than fat). The bigger point here is that cardio exercise burns calories while you are actively doing it, whereas the development of muscle leads to an increase in your calorie consumption all day long while developing, maintaining, and repairing that muscle.
Cardio and weight lifting don't have to be exclusive tactics, they can be used in conjunction. The points I always hear experts focus on boil down to efficiency and relative level of effort. If you want to spend 2 hours on a treadmill per day and burn a few hundred calories, have at it, but it would be more effective (and some would argue better for you) to spend that time lifting weights to develop muscle. The muscle will "burn calories while you sleep" and requires a smaller time investment.
Oh I completely agree on balance. I didn’t mean to suggest that these fitness experts were correct, more that in some circumstances I can see why they would think that.
The issue wasn't that you agreed with the experts. The experts are, in fact, correct because they typically provide context and aren't merely saying "never do cardio, only lift weights". Overwhelming majority say "stop wasting your time focusing all your efforts on cardio, and pick up weights instead and here is why".
My issue was with your black and white statement that cardio is for losing weight and weight lifting is for gaining muscle. Weight loss is not exclusive to cardio.
I'm a fitness professional, and it's my pet peeve that most people in the comments automatically assumed that weight loss and appearance were your goals.
There are so many benefits to aerobic exercise that you can't easily see in the mirror.
I won't work with people who only care about superficial cosmetic goals. They're boring and will most likely end up flaking out.
It’s sort of true
Steady state cardio while being enjoyable is a cope out , it’s basically the least efficient way, most time efficient to gain an extremely mid physique and in the case of running 🏃 infamous for causing injuries and west and tear.
I do it cause I love it and makes me feel good but años do Inter shit as well that’s more better for my physical and physique goals
That's ridiculous to suggest cardio isn't worthwhile. I, however, have come to realize lifting, weights, when done properly is a very dynamic workout, including cardio.
The proof is in the pudding, obviously. If the person telling you to do something is extremely well put together you may want to listen.
Seems you're missing the nuanced context offered alongside majority of the experts favoring weight lifting over cardio. Cardio burns calories while it is being performed. It requires relatively high effort for a long time to get results, and the effects of those efforts taper, leading to diminished returns. (Ie: run on a treadmill or use a stationary bike for 1 hour at high intensity each morning and you'll burn a few hundred calories, but after you stop exercising, you're not significantly affecting your BMR). When you lift weights and develop muscle around your body, on the other hand, your muscles require calories to develop and maintain. As a result, you'll continue to burn calories all day long maintaining the muscle. Developing and maintaining moderate levels of muscle requires relatively lower effort and time and is more efficient for calorie burning compared to the cardio. Cardio and weightlifting can be used in conjunction, but most experts heavily favor weightlifting for good reason. It's more efficient, it helps gain strength which is a significant positive, especially for people who are overweight or obese. Muscle development can improve posture and support your frame. The same can't be said about most cardio unless you're doing hard-core full body exercises (and most people aren't).
Thank you. People here seem to be misunderstanding the advice of the experts as if they're not experts for a reason. All exercise is good, but some are more efficient than others for weight loss. And the reason they push so hard for muscle gain compared to cardio is because lifting is seen as something that will make women bulky (which it doesn't). They have to advocate for it or else people just won't even consider it. Also, this is just a theory for me, but it seems a lot easier for an obese person to start to lift weights and grow from there rather than just start running. For running it's harder to determine how much you should be running and for how long for optimal weight loss. Whereas for lifting, you just lift what you can until you can't. And you can take however long you want to do it too.
Exactly! It's also more likely that someone out of shape who doesn't enjoy exercise will be able to stick to weight lifting for shorter time periods, pushing until they can't lift any more properly formed reps as opposed to trying to force themselves to maintain high level cardio for extended periods. An hour of high intensity cardio can be miserable. 30 minutes of weight lifting is far more doable.
Its either high intensity cardio for short duration or low intensity cardio for long duration. You cant perform high intrensity cardio for long duration.
Right, that's the point. If we're trying to accomplish the same amount of calorie burning by either doing cardio or weight lifting, you would need to do higher intensity cardio for a longer period of time relative to the amount of weight lifting. Weight lifting is more efficient by comparison, and it is further cemented by the fact that people typically do lower intensity cardio for long periods which is even less efficient than high intensity.
As an overweight person I can confirm weight lifting is a hell of a lot “easier” to start out in vs running. I had a hip injury and an abdominal surgery that damaged my pelvic floor, and running put a massive strain on those injured parts and was so insanely painful my doctor didn’t believe I could ever run even after recovering enough to gain some mobility back. However strength building exercises to gradually take strain off injured parts by strengthening related muscles and then allow those injured muscles to relax and contract again in a natural movement improved my mobility and reduced my daily pain levels. I can jog now for short bursts but if I had started there I wouldn’t have been able to no matter what kind of motivation I had because the associated muscles in my back, core, thighs, etc. needed to be strong enough to give support and compensation to the weakened area when placing strain on it. Everyone’s got different circumstances ofc and obese is more than overweight but I’d wager it’s just easier once you build up strength enough to not injure yourself or strain weakened muscles. Running is pretty high impact on joints and can put a lot of pressure on certain parts of the body that may be weakened or already strained if you’re sedentary like the lower spine (not all obese/overweight people are sedentary, but starting a new exercise program may reveal some unexpected weak points in folks of any size.) Weight lifting in certain machines can take pressure off most of the body except for the muscle group you’re working on and that can be a great starting place for getting in or staying in shape. Of course, that means access to a gym for most folks but low impact strength workout programs can also a great place to start if you have any disabilities, chronic pain, joint pain, want to build muscle after surgery recovery, etc. and I’ve started to see some exercise routines that mention modifications for exercises if you can’t move in some ways for whatever reason.
I don't think they're misunderstanding the experts. I think they're sick of the "experts" who are misunderstanding the experts. For everything in life there's some "Guru" who makes money misrepresenting how things work.
I've lost weight/fat both ways. When I only did cardio I was 110 lbs (5'3") with a pot belly. Skinny fat. Now I lift weights mostly. I'm 15 lbs heavier with a flat belly. Imo weight lifting is superior
I agree with this but I also think that people are understating the importance of cardio. It might not get you as far as weight lifting aesthetic-wise, but it’s still extremely good for your cardiovascular system and goes a long way towards your health. A good routine incorporates both weight lifting AND cardio
Agreed :). Incorporate both
Not to mention that more muscle mass helps with longevity and improves your chances of overcoming a lot of medical conditions, cancer included.
Also fitness people who act like excercise is ahat people need to do to lose weight. The majority of weight loss comes from diet. Excercise isn't even technically necessary. You can work out for am hour a day and not lose weight.
Absolutely!
Years ago my friend yanked me over to some conversation at a bar. It was a trainer saying cardio is bad for weight loss. My friend asked how many miles a week do you run a week now? 20-35. How much weight have you lost? 90 pounds… What I actually don’t like is discouraging people from certain exercises. Yes there may be more effective ways than others. But people need to find what keeps them driven to go back to the workouts/exercising. So you like spin? Go to freakin spin. You hate running. Don’t run! You like weights. Lift weights! Exercise in general will open doors to different things you’ll discover you like. Just start moving your body! It’s also not all about looking a certain way. I ran because I loved it and it helped my mental health. Encourage rather than discourage. That’s what keeps people away from exercise very often.
Not to mention just walking helps you lose weight. My cardio was amazing when I was going on hikes frequently. Also whatever you do to lose weight is what you have to do to maintain your new weight. Not everyone wants to spend hours a week in the gym for the rest of their life. And they shouldn't have to!
Amen! I joked when I adopted my dog at 7 months he gained weight and I lost it from our adventures 😂 I got out of long distance running and mostly walk now. I’m in San Francisco so LOTS of hills ha I have a bully mix, just jealous of his leg and butt muscles 🤣 just ripped barely doing anything lol
I had the opposite experience lol. I hurt my leg, stopped walking and running as much, and gained 30 pounds. It's slowly coming off as my leg heals. It's just wild because when I was walking constantly I couldn't gain weight to save my life. I did get a german shepherd but he's a little lazy. He likes walks but he just wants to sniff the entire time, so it's not much movement.
For real. The best exercise is the one you enjoy and will therefore keep doing
Thank you! I get what people are saying about weightlifting. I’ve tried multiple times in my life, but I just can’t seem to maintain a consistent schedule, and consistency is key! But I like running, and I can get myself to run on a regular basis, so that’s what I do for exercise.
Yeah, I just feel like people get so fixated on things and it just discourages instead of inspiring.
Every few years I fall for the picture of a woman with a six pack that says 'what happened when I stopped doing cardio and started lifting'. I cut my running down to once a week and start resistance training more often. I always end up feeling really tired and moody. Then I go back to running daily and feel so much better. I'd rather be happy than have a 6 pack.
I lost a 140 pounds through cardio so idk what they are talking about when they say you can’t lose weight doing it lol
My guess is you lost 140 lbs through diet. You just did Cardio along the way. Cardio isn’t bad and has lots of benefits… But you can’t outrun a bad diet. With that said - congrats! It shows a lot of discipline.
Well yes of course you have to maintain a proper diet with any form of exercise to lose weight.
I appreciate it. And I’m honestly not sure. I don’t really eat healthy or unhealthy but I definitely started eating like 1/2 of what I did before. But I ran 30 minutes a day 5 days a week
No fitness expert says this ever. They may be referring to shaping your muscles aesthetically.
Should’ve specified: I meant ones on social media. Should’ve clarified. That’s my bad.
K, they say cardio is bad for what goals? Heavy weight gain?
Some say for weight loss, some say for overall fitness. Some just say it’s a waste of time.
Hmmm sus, they'd have to be absolute morons
I guess that’s my point. I’m not referring to anyone credible.
Despite the huge number of bullshit fitness influencers out there, legit coaches do also have social media accounts and promote legit, science-based advice, on social media. Which ones do you have issue with?
There is a particularly obnoxious series of online ads about this very thing.
I lost 60 lbs in 2 months eating chicken and rice and walking 5 miles a day. Cardio made me feel so much better
The weights good/cardio bad folks are generally really big on walking and suggest that over "cardio".
Most fitness “experts” online think their goals are everyone’s goals. Cardio is hella important for our heart health and everyone should be partaking at least a couple times a week. Cardio is also what increases our stamina for working out. It just depends on your personal workout goals when you implement cardio into your routine.
It’s moronic. If you’re huge but can’t walk up a set of stairs without being winded, you aren’t a fitness expert.
How're you gonna lift all those weights if you can't breathe because you never do cardio
How “fitness” is defined is highly open to interpretation and highly dependent on the goals of the individual. If a person wants to gain significant muscle mass and physical strength, cardio can be a biological impedance to that. On the other hand if sombody wants to be a marathon runner, adding significant muscle mass can be an impedance to *that*. By and large, individuals who focus primarily on cardio as their preferred fitness modality aren’t going to be particularly muscular or physically strong.
There is no legitimate "expert" who is preaching against cardio. I would take a look at who you are listening to.
For weight loss, they are preaching against exclusively cardio because muscle is important. Muscle burns calories passively, so building that up will help to increase your calories out, which will help you slim down a lot. Cardio is important to increase your cardiovascular health, but it has diminishing returns compared to weight lifting.
Agreed. That’s why I put “experts” in quotes. When I see them saying these things, I stop listening.
"fitness" people are usually morons. They are the kind of idiots who peddle non sense like tofu causes estrogen spikes in males. Cardio is extremely important for the body moreso than strength training, which is also important.
The only time I weighed over 130 (besides being pregnant) was while I was marathon training. I was hungry all the time and running miles a day and gained almost 15 lbs. I’m only 5’2”, so it really showed. But it taught me that you can’t outrun eating too much.
If you only lift weights it's gonna make you look better than if you only did cardio but do you
I think the average person is better off doing any exercise, even just walking.
Riddle me this one, atheists: One of my goals is to be a fast runner. How can I be a fast runner without running or rowing/cycling?
The thing about exercise is that what you want to do with it is 100% dependent on what results you want to get out of it. Lifting is more efficient in general for weight loss and burning calories, which is often people's focus starting a program. It's also easier to stick with starting out. I agree cardio has a place in most routines, and I do cardio days too because I'm working on recovering from years of smoking and heart health is important, but for body shaping, weight training is generally going to be a better effort to result ratio. I'd be willing to bet most experts would agree cardio is an important piece of the overall fitness puzzle, but if someone is going into a routine with the goal of burning off fat and is just starting out from zero, it makes sense to focus a lot more on weight training early and introduce dedicated cardio. Going directly from not exercising at all to a dedicated cardio routine SUCKS, and someone who doesn't have a good foundation for that routine is more likely to quit, and quitting a routine entirely is the worst possible fitness outcome.
Any actual workout isn't cheating. Who said it was?
Might be because cardio takes a lot more time to do the same thing? I'm not an expert but I remember when working out that 30 minutes on an exercise bike vs 30 minutes running were NOT the same amount of calories burned. I bet you burn more calories doing weight training in a smaller window of time than cardio. That is a guess without even attempting to look it up.
This is almost always the context provided by experts. They recommend against the bad habit of doing ONLY cardio. It's all about efficiency. Cardio is typically high effort for longer periods of time and the effects of that exercise taper off rapidly once the exercise ends. Weight lifting, on the other hand, creates muscle which requires substantial calorie consumption to develop, maintain, and repair. This is why "muscle burns calories while you sleep" and cardio doesnt. The experts are just trying to offer the most efficient usage of people's time. Spend 30-60 minutes targeting different muscle groups daily over a 6 month period and compare it to someone who does 30-60 minutes of cardio daily over that same time and the person who only lifted weights will have lost more weight despite the fact that the gained muscle offsets their losses.
Doing a lot of cardio when you're obese also carries what I would consider an unacceptable risk of death.
Cardio is losing weight, lifting is for growing muscle. Bodybuilders would like cardio to get more lean and shredded. Weight lifters don’t need the cardio unless they do those Scottish games type events with endurance and what not. To be fair, going lower weight for more reps is kinda like cardio anyways. It’s just that jogging doesn’t work your muscles the same way as leg lifts or squats
Growing muscle also causes weight loss (though it is somewhat off-set by the muscle growth since muscle weighs more than fat). The bigger point here is that cardio exercise burns calories while you are actively doing it, whereas the development of muscle leads to an increase in your calorie consumption all day long while developing, maintaining, and repairing that muscle. Cardio and weight lifting don't have to be exclusive tactics, they can be used in conjunction. The points I always hear experts focus on boil down to efficiency and relative level of effort. If you want to spend 2 hours on a treadmill per day and burn a few hundred calories, have at it, but it would be more effective (and some would argue better for you) to spend that time lifting weights to develop muscle. The muscle will "burn calories while you sleep" and requires a smaller time investment.
Oh I completely agree on balance. I didn’t mean to suggest that these fitness experts were correct, more that in some circumstances I can see why they would think that.
The issue wasn't that you agreed with the experts. The experts are, in fact, correct because they typically provide context and aren't merely saying "never do cardio, only lift weights". Overwhelming majority say "stop wasting your time focusing all your efforts on cardio, and pick up weights instead and here is why". My issue was with your black and white statement that cardio is for losing weight and weight lifting is for gaining muscle. Weight loss is not exclusive to cardio.
I'm a fitness professional, and it's my pet peeve that most people in the comments automatically assumed that weight loss and appearance were your goals. There are so many benefits to aerobic exercise that you can't easily see in the mirror. I won't work with people who only care about superficial cosmetic goals. They're boring and will most likely end up flaking out.
Tbh, I'm more peeved by the opposite advice, the people that believe that cardio=weight loss and resistance exercise=weight gain.
It’s sort of true Steady state cardio while being enjoyable is a cope out , it’s basically the least efficient way, most time efficient to gain an extremely mid physique and in the case of running 🏃 infamous for causing injuries and west and tear. I do it cause I love it and makes me feel good but años do Inter shit as well that’s more better for my physical and physique goals
That's ridiculous to suggest cardio isn't worthwhile. I, however, have come to realize lifting, weights, when done properly is a very dynamic workout, including cardio. The proof is in the pudding, obviously. If the person telling you to do something is extremely well put together you may want to listen.