Cardio or Strength Training for Weight Loss?

Most are well aware that achieving efficient and sustainable fat loss requires a solid diet plan. That plan should involve putting yourself in a suitable calorie deficit to achieve your goals. You can find more information about that in my post How Many Calories Should You be Eating? This post aims to explore the debate on which is better for fat loss. Is it cardio, or is it strength training?

If fat loss is your goal, this question always comes up: should you do cardio or lift weights? People want the fastest, most efficient answer. They want to know what burns more calories and gets results quicker.

For years, the default answer was cardio. Doctors and fitness professionals pushed it because it improves heart health and burns a lot of calories during the workout.

But we know better now.

If your goal is long-term fat loss and visible body composition change, resistance training isn’t optional — it’s the foundation. If I had to choose one, strength training wins every time.

Here’s why.

Cardio for Weight Loss

Let’s be clear: cardio has value. If all you care about is burning calories in the moment, cardio gets the job done.

Research consistently shows that steady-state and high-intensity cardio burn more calories during the workout itself compared to resistance training performed for the same duration (Donnelly et al., 2009).

Cardio is also excellent for cardiovascular health. Regular aerobic exercise improves heart and lung function and helps lower blood pressure (Donnelly et al., 2009).

But here’s the hard truth: cardio’s calorie-burning advantage mostly ends when the workout ends. Once you’re done, the metabolic impact drops fast.

If you rely on cardio alone for fat loss, you’re stuck constantly chasing more time, more miles, or more sessions just to maintain progress.

Strength Training for Weight Loss

Strength training doesn’t just help you lose weight — it changes how your body works.

Resistance training builds and preserves lean muscle mass, and lean muscle is metabolically active tissue. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn at rest — even when you’re doing nothing (Hunter et al., 2008).

This matters because most people don’t fail fat loss during workouts — they fail the other 23 hours of the day.

Strength training also creates a post-workout calorie burn. After hard resistance sessions, your body continues to expend energy as it repairs muscle tissue and restores balance — a phenomenon known as excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, or EPOC (Schuenke et al., 2002).

On top of that, strength training:

• Preserves muscle while dieting (Hunter et al., 2008)
• Improves strength, posture, and physical capability (Westcott, 2012)
• Produces more visible fat loss and body recomposition than cardio alone (Willis et al., 2012)

In short: cardio makes you lighter. Strength training makes you leaner.

Final Takeaway

Both cardio and resistance training can reduce body weight and body fat. But they do not deliver the same outcome.

Cardio: burns calories now and improves heart health.
Strength training: reshapes your body, protects muscle, and raises your metabolic floor.

When researchers compare cardio alone, lifting alone, and a combination of both, the best fat-loss and body composition results consistently come from programs built around resistance training, with cardio added strategically (Willis et al., 2012; Strasser & Schobersberger, 2011).

If you want sustainable fat loss, stop treating lifting like an accessory. Build your program around progressive resistance training and a solid diet plan that includes a sufficient calorie deficit. Add cardio to support calorie burn and conditioning — not to replace strength work.

Lift first. Burn fat longer. Keep the results.

References

1. Donnelly JE, Blair SN, Jakicic JM, et al. Appropriate physical activity intervention strategies for weight loss. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 2009.
2. Willis LH, Slentz CA, Bateman LA, et al. Effects of aerobic and/or resistance training on body mass and fat mass. Journal of Applied Physiology. 2012.
3. Hunter GR, Byrne NM, Sirikul B, et al. Resistance training conserves fat-free mass and resting energy expenditure. Obesity. 2008.
4. Schuenke MD, Mikat RP, McBride JM. Effect of an acute period of resistance exercise on excess post-exercise oxygen consumption: implications for body mass management. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2002 Mar;86(5):411-7. doi: 10.1007/s00421-001-0568-y. Epub 2002 Jan 29. PMID: 11882927.
5. Westcott WL. Resistance training is medicine. Current Sports Medicine Reports. 2012.
6. Strasser B, Schobersberger W. Evidence for resistance training as a therapy in obesity. Journal of Obesity. 2011.