Is Cardio Best for Weight Loss?

One of the most talked about topics in the fitness industry is: Cardio and fat reduction.

This is what your clients (and yes, we trainers too) want to know:

Let’s find the answer to the question is cardio best for weight loss?

What kind of cardio improves fat loss? LISS (Low Intensity Stable State Cardio) or HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training)?

Is Cardio Really Necessary for Fat Loss?

The immediate answer is no. You don’t really need to do cardio to lose fat that much. You can lose fat by cutting calories, training resistance, or combining the two.

The key to losing body fat is to consume fewer calories than you need. Cardio can help you burn more calories, but not necessarily.

Limiting your calorie intake is the obvious solution to fat loss. People who eat fewer calories lose more fat. But what about resistance training? How does it help reduce fat?

The best way to lose weight is the best way to lose weight because it builds muscle. When you gain muscle, you increase your relaxation energy expenditure

Muscle tissue also needs more calories than fat tissue when it relaxes. The more muscles you have, the more calories you will burn each day.

Bottom Line…

There is a time and place for every type of exercise and both types of cardio. Both aerobic and anaerobic exercise offer many benefits. Right now, the final answer is that HIIT is at the forefront when it comes to burning fat.

So, if your client’s main goal is weight loss, pay attention to HIIT but don’t skip other types of exercise. Also, keep in mind that if your client is classified as a beginner, starting HIIT may not be the right training method. You may need time to get to the level of fitness where you are comfortable enough to start interval training. Strength training builds muscle and leads to more relaxed energy expenditure.

There are also benefits to LISS training, such as building muscle in the heart, better disposing of metabolic waste, using more fat for fuel instead of sugar, and really increasing the oxidation of fat. Although we can’t burn as much fat with LISS as much as we can with HIIT, it still does work nonetheless, and also provides health benefits to us as well. 

We hope that you now have the answer to the question is cardio best for weight loss?