Cardio or Strength Training?

I've seen many questions recently about lifting weights versus cardio. Which one is better for toning up? Losing pounds? Losing inches? Here's the answer:

You gotta do both!

Now you're groaning. You can't imagine lifting a dumbbell after sweating your butt off on the treadmill for an hour. Where are you going to fit more working out into your day? Relax it's easier than you think!

First of all doing endless hours of cardio isn't going to be a total solution for your weight loss. You have to be careful that you're body doesn't get used to the exercise and it's just "going through the motions". One indication that your cardio isn't working is when you plateau. Some experts say to eat more or to eat less but what you really need to do is move differently. A great way to do this is to incorporate strength training.

The new philosophy in strength training is lift heavy for 1 set where you almost can't finish that 12th rep. This works wonders!!!! I first discovered this method when I read "The Cardio Free Diet". This was also the philosophy behind Chalean Extreme (see before and after pics at www.chaleanextreme90dayjourney.blogspot.com) which I also completed. Not only are these workouts short but since you're doing different exercises one after the other you're also getting a cardio effect as well.

Let's say you normally do one hour of cardio six days a week. You can easily change that to 1/2 an hour of strength and 1/2 an hour of cardio 3 days a week and the other 3 days you leave as cardio. The time you spend working out will stay the same and you will see the inches fly off.

Here's a warning. When starting a new workout you may get sore. With soreness comes water retention due to your muscles going through the repairing process. So 2 - 5 pounds of weight gain is absolutely normal when starting a strength program. Within a couple of weeks you should see those pounds come off. The other thing I have to warn you is that you may end up replacing your scale with a tape measure. You will lose a lot of inches when you start lifting so you're better off getting a tape measure to track your progress instead of relying on your scale.

Lifting weights is amazing. It is very gratifying to see that one week you were doing bicep curls with 5 lb weights and now you're doing them with 10 lb weights. It gives you yet another motivating factor to keep track of during your fitness journey.

I hope this helped.

Cya!