What is the Best Way to Lose Weight: Resistance Training, Aerobic Training, or Both?

What is the Best Way to Lose Weight?

Should you do Resistance Training, Aerobic Training (Cardio), or a combination of Both to lose weight? Different people will swear by different training methods and some claim one is better than the other but which one is that best?

Can you lose weight while resistance training? Can you gain muscle while doing aerobic (cardio) training? Which will cause the greatest fat loss?

Lose Body Weight or Lose Body Fat?

There is a difference between losing weight and losing body fat, this is something we quickly forget and just focus on the number on the scale. Not seeing our weight drop can be discouraging and in the back of our mind tell ourselves we are gaining muscle and losing fat. But is this true? Can you do both lose weight and body fat?

Resistance Training to Lose Weight

Resistance training is a great way to build muscle and lose weight. Resistance training does provide many health benefits:

Increased Lean Body Mass
Increased Metabolism
Increased Bone Density
Increased Strength

Metabolism makes up about 65% of all your calories used in a day. There is a direct correlation to increased lean body mass (muscle) and metabolism, the more you have the higher your metabolism will be. Therefore, you should be able to increase your metabolism to decrease your body fat percentage by focusing on resistance training.

While you will lose body fat over time, resistance training alone may not be the fastest way reduce your body weight due the increase in muscle mass at the same time.

Many people do not see large drops in body weight by doing resistance training alone, is mostly due to the lower calorie expenditure do have from lifting weights vs. other forms of exercise.

You are doing extra exercise and this should help lose body fat but the biggest long term benefit will be an increased metabolism. Which should help you keep your body fat lower going forward as long as you maintain that muscle mass.

Aerobic Training to Lose Weight

Aerobic training is a great way to burn off fat and improve cardiovascular health. Aerobic training provides the following benefits:

Decreased Body Fat
Decreased Body Weight
Increased Cardiovascular Health

In order to burn fat storages held on your body, you will need to create a higher calorie expenditure above your food intake. Aerobic activity requires a lot of calories and uses body fat the energy source to reduce your body fat. Aerobic activity is a great way to reduce your fat storages and lose body weight.

You will be be burning fat and losing weight all at the same time. Many people will see faster drops in body weight due to the higher caloric expenditure than resistance training alone. But aerobic training on it's own may not increase your lean muscle which may not lead to an increase in your metabolism.

Resistance and Aerobic Training to Lose Weight

The combination of doing both resistance and aerobic training does provide the best of both worlds. It's easy to see why this would be the best method for both fat loss and increased metabolism.

Below are the statistics of an experiment showing these 3 scenarios done over a 8 month period.

Resistance training alone did lead to the greatest amount of lean body mass gained (avg. 1.09kg) but less of an increase in every other category. Aerobic activity alone did result in the greatest total weight loss (avg. -1.76 kg) but fell behind in other categories. The combination of resistance and aerobic training received the best overall benefits, fat loss, body fat percentage, VO2 max increase, while finishing a close second in total body weight lost and lean mass gained.

Winner: BOTH!

The combination of both resistance aerobic training does produce the best results in the short term and the long term. Focusing on just resistance training will help you build the most amount of muscle. Focusing on aerobic training will produce the greatest amount of weight loss. But you can accomplish both gaining lean muscle mass and losing body fat / weight by combining the two types of exercise without sacrificing the benefits of either.