How many days per week ideal for fat loss?

[Marie]

I currently do 2 days rest, and the other 4 days i do both high cardio and weights.
Iv been recommended to up my schedual and do weights with about 20min cardio 5 times a week and do cardio for up to an hour on the other 2 days with no weights. Only taking rest days on cardio days if i need them.

Which do you think would work best for me?

[zackmurphy]

No idea what would work best for you, but I know what would work for me.

I'd separate the cardio and the weights, so 1) each gets all your available energy, and 2) catabolism is minimized.

If lower bf% is your goal, think about cardio 3-4x/week, and hit the weights on other days. And get your diet in check. Whatever your foo dplan is, make sure there's not accidental pitfalls.

[AJbuilder]

With cardio and lifting, it's very important that you balance the sessions properly and there are no set rules for everyone:

-You can choose to do 20 minutes of cardio on your lifting days, but make sure you are not doing HIIT sessions or any moderate to high intensity cardio. Use those 20 minutes just as warmups and cooldown(devote 10 min. to warmup, 10 to cooldown immediately right after lifting). The cooldown is a must as it helps the re-circulation of blood to your muscles for passing and recycling acidic wastes, especially if you are working with moderate repetitions and/or heavy weights.

-If you choose and think you can handle it, you can choose to do the moderate to high intensity cardio early in the morning(right after breakfast ), then save the lifting session to evening. Make sure to space them at least 8 hours. Remember that one cardio session acts as a workout in itself.

- Another easy alternative is to save the cardio on your off lifting days. Say you lift 4 times a week, do cardio on the remaining three days that you dont lift, then squeeze one more session, if you'd like, into the morning of one of your lifting session, making a total of 4 lifting days and 4 cardio sessions in a whole week.


But most importantly, diet and lifting has to be strict , but i would keep the diet even stricter.