Cardio. Lots of cardio. That’s probably the first thing that comes to mind when you think about losing weight. I’m sure that anyone trying to lose a few (or more) pounds of body fat has nightmares of hour-long sessions on the treadmill. The sad part is, cardio works. By pushing your body to perform aerobic exercise, you can effectively burn calories and lose fat. It would be much easier for everyone if cardio were a massive waste of time and energy that didn’t produce results.  Unfortunately, we’re not that lucky.

But if you’re just doing cardio without lifting weights, you’re missing out on the opportunity to burn fat more effectively. Lifting weights, not only for men, but also for women, works in tandem with cardiovascular exercise to make your body leaner and more resistant to gaining fat.

Why Lifting Weights Is Effective

Ultimately, losing fat is about taking in less calories than you expend.  By lifting weights, you alter the balance of calories consumed to calories burned.  There are several reasons for this.

1. Lifting weights is exercise. An intense weightlifting session burns calories in much the same way that an exhausting session of cardio does.  When you work out with weights, you need energy to perform your lifts; that energy comes from stored calories in your body.  By lifting weights intensely for at least half an hour to forty-five minutes, you’ll burn anywhere from 60-80% of the calories that you’d burn by running at 5 MPH for the same amount of time.
2. Lifting weights raises your metabolic rate for hours after you exercise. When you finish your work out session, your body doesn’t return to its normal resting state right away.  Your metabolic rate is actually raised for a certain amount of time after you work out.  High intensity exercise, such as weight training, raises your metabolic rate for several hours after your workout, allowing you to burn additional calories.
3. Lifting weights builds muscle, which requires calories to maintain. Muscle is metabolically active.  That means it requires energy just to exist.  By lifting weights (and assuming you’re eating correctly), you can increase the amount of muscle on your body.  That increased muscle will burn additional calories, reducing the amount of calories that would have otherwise been used as fat storage.
4. Lifting weights can counteract the muscle-loss effects of cardio. Some fitness experts think that a very high level of cardio can slightly break down muscle.  Though it’s unlikely that most people are performing such levels of cardio on a daily basis, lifting weights can help balance any potential muscle-loss that may be occurring in certain individuals.  By keeping that muscle, you’re continuing to burn calories.

Weight Training Alone Is Not Enough

To most effectively lose weight, you need a comprehensive and complete program that includes weight training, proper nutrition, cardio, and adequate rest.  You will make some gains even if you aren’t doing all of these things, but your most significant progress will come when you do all of these together.

All of these components supplement each other, and by performing all of them together, you can reduce the amount of time it takes to reach your fat loss goals.  When you start weight training, it’s even more important to eat right and get enough sleep.  Without it, you’ll be taking one step backwards for every two steps forward.

By training with weights, you increase the chances of success, but weight training isn’t a magic pill.  If there were such a thing, you wouldn’t be reading this article in the first place.