You want to lose weight, but everywhere you look, it seems you get differing opinions. Weightlifting is better! Cardio is better! You might even hear, “Cardio is bad for weight loss!” or some other unique viewpoint.
So, what’s the deal? If you’re trying to lose fat, what’s better for weight loss, cardio or lifting weights?
This article will help you make sense of a needlessly confusing topic so you can optimize your weight loss and start working for results rather than wasting time trying to decide what to do.
The Best Way To Lose Weight?
People seem to always be searching for the best way to lose weight. The most common source of free information is online and social media. While there is great information out there, a lot of the time, it only complicates the topic further – needlessly.
So we’ll start from the beginning real quick: how does weight loss occur?
Calories In, Calories Out
Weight loss occurs through the simple equation;
Calories In – Calories Out = Weight
Calories are simply a measurement of energy. If you eat more calories than you burn, creating a caloric surplus, your body will store that extra energy as fat to be used later.
On the other hand, if you burn more calories than you eat, creating a caloric deficit, your body needs to provide extra energy to make up for the shortage. To do this, it breaks down stored fat to supply energy.
Now, it just so happens that this topic has been overcomplicated as well. Yes, there is nuance to consider on a person-to-person basis. This can include things such as;
Slower metabolisms
Psychology
A person’s access to healthy food options
Food selection
However, none of these negate the fact that you must eat fewer calories than you burn to lose weight.
For example, if you have a slower metabolism, that ultimately means you will burn less calories. If you don’t have access to healthy food, you will likely be more prone to eating more calories.
So, while these can make weight loss harder, it still comes down to calorie control.
Therefore, let’s look at the two primary ways people will lose weight.
Cardio For Weight Loss
The first form of exercise people will use to lose weight is cardio.
To keep things simple, I’m going to specifically refer to prolonged exercise at moderate intensity, such as running on the treadmill or the stair climber. This is what people usually refer to when this topic is brought up.
Calories Burned During Cardio For Burning Fat
Putting the health benefits aside, cardio is often used for weight loss due to the many calories burned. Obviously, there are a lot of variables to consider when determining how many, such as;
Weight
Length of time running
Speed
Distance traveled
With that in mind, a 160 lb person running 10k in an hour will burn around 700 calories in a perfect world. While that’s a lot, reaching this ability takes time – the average person will not go run a 10k right off the bat. In reality, most people doing cardio for an hour will be closer to 500-600 if they can run for an hour.
For many people, 30 minutes is too long, and this will obviously result in fewer calories burned, around 300.
Understand that this is very simplistic. However, the main point is that an hour of cardio will burn more calories than an hour weight lifting session. Therefore, this is definitely its primary benefit in terms of weight loss.
Cardio Works
The most important issue is that cardio works – anything that increases physical activity is going to work.
In fact, many people will point to high-intensity training (i.e. HITT) and claim it’s, in fact, better for fat loss. However, research has shown that moderate cardio is the superior form for those aged 30 and up.¹ This is when considering the amount of fat loss in addition to adherence long-term.
Now, HIIT is still an awesome form of exercise and provides plenty of other benefits – ultimately, you should have some form in your program.
Regardless, cardio has the potential to burn a lot of calories, making it attractive for fat loss.
Strength Training For Weight Loss
Over the last few years, lifting weights has become more popular for weight loss—and that’s a good thing. While your main concern when lifting weights is building or maintaining muscle, it actually plays a large role in burning fat and improving body composition.
Calories Burned While Lifting Weights
In general, lifting weights won’t burn as many calories as cardio.
The average lifting session will last around an hour, and similar to cardio, there are many variables to consider;
Weight of the person
Style of training
Intensity
Load lifted
Regardless, the average person in the gym is probably going to burn an extra 150-300 calories, not as many as cardio, at least in theory.
Now, there are ways to increase your calorie burn by lifting weights. For example;
High volume training
High-intensity methods such as drop sets and EMOMs
Circuit training
Regardless, the main point is that burning calories usually isn’t the primary reason someone lifts weights.
However, research has been done recently looking at real-world applications. It suggests that resistance training can produce a similar drop in fat mass to aerobic training when paired with calorie restriction.²
In other words, even though you should technically be able to burn more calories with cardio, in the real world, both seem to produce similar drops in fat mass.
Preserving Muscle Mass
Putting all the other health benefits aside, strength training still has a unique benefit that cardio does not – preserving or building muscle.
Some forms of cardio may build muscle in the lower body to some extent, depending on the person’s starting level. However, even with the most significant changes, it’s still nothing compared to lifting weights.
This is a huge benefit as being on a caloric deficit without resistance training can result in;
Loss of muscle
Loss of strength
Decreased metabolic rate
Strength Training And Increasing Your Metabolism
A study placed women on different training protocols to lose weight. It found that ladies who used resistance training maintained their REE (Resting Energy Expenditure) throughout the protocol, while those who did not saw a decrease.³
Now, the study did have the ladies eating 800 calories a day, which is extremely low. However, it shows another benefit of strength training regarding fat loss.
When this benefit is paired with a similar loss of fat mass as cardio and a greater ability to maintain muscle mass, lifting weights seems highly attractive.
In fact, a large meta that examined resistance training and aerobic training concluded²:
“Considering the similar effect on fat and weight loss and the unique effect on lean mass, resistance training rather than aerobic exercise alone should be considered within any multicomponent fat loss prescription for individuals with overweight/obesity.”
If You Could Only Pick One, Would You Lift Weights Or Do Cardio For Burn Fat?
Let’s start by saying this is a non-issue. As mentioned before, the vast majority of people can do both, and they should.
Therefore, in order to answer this question, let’s pretend we live in a world where you can only choose one.
If your goal is losing weight, optimizing body composition, or improving health, strength training is the better option.
As we went over above, technically, you should be able to burn more calories with cardio, and many people do. However, in terms of actual fat loss in the real world, strength training;
Results in the same amount of fat loss on average
Superior in preserving muscle mass and possibly even building mass
Does a better job of preserving your REE during long-term caloric deficits
While cardio is awesome for improving your cardiovascular system and has the potential to burn more calories, only using cardio during fat loss could actually lead to greater muscle mass loss in the long term.
Do You Need To Exercise To Burn Fat?
Amid all this debate, there’s another ridiculous claim making the rounds. That is, “You don’t need exercise to lose fat.”
No. No, you don’t.
But it sure helps a ton.
There always seems to be a group that tries to challenge current thinking needlessly. Of course, this isn’t always bad, and it can push us further.
But claims like this are simply misleading.
For one, there are other reasons to exercise apart from burning calories. This includes;
Increased cardio
Greater bone density
Stronger muscles
Improved hormone levels
Improved glucose metabolism
And I could go on and on.
However, we do know that exercising, cardio, and resistance training combined with calorie restriction result in superior body composition.
In addition, research has shown that exercise leads to greater adherence, resulting in greater long-term weight maintenance.⁴
Therefore, while technically you don’t need exercise to lose weight, including exercise will;
Make the process easier
Lead to better results
Improve other health markers
So, What’s The Best Form Of Weight Loss?
This brings us to the big question: what’s the best form of weight loss?
As hinted throughout this article, the only true way to lose weight is to control your diet. This is how fat loss occurs – everything else is extra.
Here are examples to illustrate this.
Example 1: The average person trains around 4 times a week, but let’s be liberal and say 5. Now, let’s pretend they’re able to burn 1,000 calories an hour, equaling 5,000 calories weekly.
Divided across 7 days in a week equals 700 calories daily. That’s awesome and is a lot if you control your diet.
However, one meal at a local fast food joint has 1,200 to 1,500 calories. 700 calories is not that much if you haven’t been able to get your diet under control, and you can easily eat more than that.
Now, consider most people probably burn closer to 500 calories a session, equaling 350 calories daily. It’s really not that much in the grand scheme of things.
Example 2: While a crude example, you don’t need to get out of bed to lose weight. On the extreme level, many bedridden people will drop weight simply because their caloric intake is dropped. Obviously, this isn’t the route you should take, but it shows you could lose weight without exercise.
Collectively, what these two examples demonstrate is that controlling your diet is necessary to lose weight.
In reality, we shouldn’t even be asking what’s better for fat loss as that comes from controlling your diet. What we should be asking is, “How can we best optimize weight loss?”
How To Optimize Your Weight Loss
You won’t optimize your weight loss just by controlling calories. In addition, you don’t have to choose between cardio or strength training to burn fat.
As we discussed, strength training and cardio have unique benefits for weight loss and health. Therefore, you should have some form of both in your overall plan.
There’s also another key component. Here’s how to get the most out of your weight loss program.
1. Control Your Diet
We just reviewed this, so there is nothing to add other than to reiterate its importance. Depending on how much fat you need to burn, you should create anywhere between a 300-1,000 calorie deficit.
2. Strength Train Three Times A Week
You could get away with strength training twice a week if you needed it. However, I feel most people get better results training three (or more) times a week.
Other than the increased stimulus placed on the muscles, resting three days between sessions can sometimes affect motivation and adherence.
3. Include 1-3 Cardio Sessions (30+ Minutes)
Cardio will help burn extra calories. At the same time, regular cardio strengthens your cardiovascular system, improves glucose control, lowers heart rate, and provides other health benefits.
Therefore, you should have at least one session but ideally three. To be clear, this does not include walking. This refers to prolonged activity at moderate intensity
4. Increase Your General Activity
This is where walking comes in. Improving your general physical activity levels will make a massive difference, not just in calories expended but also in health. This is where the whole “10,000 steps” comes into play.⁵⁻⁶
Walking 10,000 steps a day will increase your daily caloric burn by 300-600 calories, depending on different variables.
Strength Training Or Cardio? Final Verdict
Currently, 41% of the adult population is either obese or severely obese.⁷ As we know, obesity brings a ton of health issues, so losing weight is an essential goal. Therefore, you should use all of the tools at your disposal.
This includes lifting weights and cardio in addition to increasing activity, optimizing sleep, and obviously fixing your diet. Pitting these two forms of training against each other is silly as they complement each other beautifully.
As we went over above, an optimal weight loss plan that uses all tools will likely give you your best results. However, if you can only do one, resistance training will likely give you better overall results in the long run.
At the same time, if you can only do cardio, it’s still going to be very effective. Don’t let these debates confuse you!
References
Jagsz” S, Sikora M. The Effectiveness of High-Intensity Interval Training vs. Cardio Training for Weight Loss in Patients with Obesity: A Systematic Review. Journal of Clinical Medicine. 2025; 14(4):1282. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm14041282
Lopez P, Taaffe DR, Galvão DA, et al. Resistance training effectiveness on body composition and body weight outcomes in individuals with overweight and obesity across the lifespan: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Obesity Reviews. 2022; 23(5):e13428. doi:10.1111/obr.13428
Hunter, G.R., Byrne, N.M., Sirikul, B., Fernández, J.R., Zuckerman, P.A., Darnell, B.E. and Gower, B.A. (2008), Resistance Training Conserves Fat-free Mass and Resting Energy Expenditure Following Weight Loss. Obesity, 16: 1045-1051. https://doi.org/10.1038/oby.2008.38
Wu, T., Gao, X., Chen, M. and Van Dam, R.M. (2009), Long-term effectiveness of diet-plus-exercise versus diet-only interventions for weight loss: a meta-analysis. Obesity Reviews, 10: 313-323. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-789X.2008.00547.x
Creasy, S.A., Lang, W., Tate, D.F., Davis, K.K. and Jakicic, J.M. (2018), Pattern of Daily Steps is Associated with Weight Loss: Secondary Analysis from the Step-Up Randomized Trial. Obesity, 26: 977-984. https://doi.org/10.1002/oby.22171
Masi, E., Peterman, J.E. & Kaminsky, L.A. The Health Benefits of a Pedometer-Based 100,000 Steps/Week Physical Activity Program. J. of SCI. IN SPORT AND EXERCISE 1, 176–183 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42978-019-0021-8
NIDDK. Overweight & Obesity Statistics. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Published September 2021. https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-statistics/overweight-obesity
