Trying to lose fat

[Peong38]

TryING to lose some fat i'm 5'4 240 lbs and been doing a lot of cardio and just started to lift some weights but was told by a lot of people not to because I'm trying to lose fat not build muscle and if I do try to lift I'm not going to gain from it and only skinny people that are looking for muscle should lift what i was told by some people...so I was thinking maybe I shouldn't put lifting into my workout and just do all cardio and eat less, but lifting is so much more fun than to do than cardio I mean I would love to do both but is my only option is cardio?

So what's everyone think?

[lmcfreekz]

You lose fat by having a calorie deficit... think of lifting weights and cardio as two activities that you can increase how many calories your body uses, thus both will result in losing fat - providing your body is in caloric deficit....

As for which approach, I've generally trained people that were overweight into shape on the basis of weightlifting alone with cardio taking the form of farmers walks rather than messing around on the treadmill... but if you're 240lbs at 5'4" it probably wouldn't hurt for you to be doing some cardio too just to increase your aerobic capacity. I've also found that those people find lifting weights quite rewarding because even on a calorie deficit, their CNS adapts to lifting so they're able to lift more without technically building muscle. Also a number of people that are big are actually quite strong, maybe not relative to weight, but they have muscle, it's just covered by excess fat tissue... so again, they've found it to be quite a morale booster because they'll be able to shift more weight than people that they consider to be 'in shape', i.e. those that are leaner so appear to have a decent amount of muscle...

[DropSetDemon]

Agreed. I'm currently trying to do this as I done phucked up dirty bulking. Just eat less and if u do gotta eat make it proteins

[Peong38]

So I guess weight loss as long as you have a calories deficit,without exercise but cardiovascular and weight lifting as supporting weight loss, seems doable, thanks for the advice.

[lmcfreekz]

Yea. Doing something like 30 minutes of intense cardio daily should burn about 300kcal...

The lifting weights is about challenging your body and changing it's composition... it's good to get your body on that path because it'll mean that you don't have to go through the headache of rebuilding the muscle you lost by just doing cardio... so when you hit whatever your target weight is, you'll actually have some conditioning there and not just be skin and bones because you lost the fat and muscle.

[Peong38]

Alright sounds great

[CommitmentRulz]

The lifting weights is about challenging your body and changing it's composition... it's good to get your body on that path because it'll mean that you don't have to go through the headache of rebuilding the muscle you lost by just doing cardio... so when you hit whatever your target weight is, you'll actually have some conditioning there and not just be skin and bones because you lost the fat and muscle.

This ^^^.

OP, you want/need to be lifting heavy weights.