Can exercise help weight loss? Should you just do more cardio if you need to drop a few pounds? At first, it may seem like a simple yes. But that’s not necessarily the case. Exercise, cardio, weight loss, and your body are a much more complex equation than you might think.

What’s Wrong with Only Doing Cardio and More Cardio?

While it may seem like a wonderful idea to bump up your cardio sessions if you want to lose weight, that might not always be the best answer. Can exercise help weight loss? Absolutely. But you need a well-rounded fat-burning program that includes more than just cardio for a variety of reasons.

1. Cardio can make you ravenous—if you’re doing copious amounts of cardio with fat loss as your goal, you might find yourself eating more than usual. Yes, cardio burns calories, and burning calories is needed if you want to lose weight. However, fat loss is about creating a deficit between what you’re taking in and what you’re expending in terms of energy. People often overestimate both the number of calories they burn through exercise and underestimate the number of extra calories they take in by eating more. If doing more cardio is also making you eat more, you might be doing the extra for nothing (and could even end up putting on more body fat in the process).

2. Your body adapts—as you know, your body is a finely tuned machine and it learns and adapts to the stressors placed upon it. And those stressors include exercise like cardio. So, as you increase the amount of cardio you do, and you go harder, your body gets more efficient at burning calories. The more cardiovascularly fit you become, the better your body becomes at burning less calories to get the same job done.

3. Hormones can keep you from losing weight—it may seem farfetched, but too much cardio can bite back and cause you to gain weight. Can exercise help weight loss? Yes. However, you need to make sure you don’t overstress your body and build in plenty of recovery time. What happens with overexertion? Your body releases the hormone cortisol, which is known as the “stress hormone.” Initially, cortisol is designed to help boost energy and metabolism to deal with “fight or flight” situations, but when you’re in a prolonged state of stress, it can actually cause your body to start storing extra body fat.

Cortisol is also responsible for breaking down muscle tissue (which is metabolically active—the more you have, the higher your metabolism). Cortisol can also hinder your body’s ability to recover and heal. This puts you in a constant state of overtraining and makes it difficult, if not impossible, to get the true benefits from your workouts. Not only does your metabolism slow, but you’ll probably suffer from sleep issues and deficiencies, leading to more stress, injury, overeating, and a hit to your motivation.

Why You Need to Add Resistance Training to Your Exercise Program

When you do a lot of cardio, and you burn through your glycogen stores and then fat, eventually, your body will turn to muscle mass for energy. This is a situation you don’t want.

Not only do cardio lovers tap into precious muscle mass, they also tend to eschew resistance training in favor of, you guessed it… more cardio. The combination of breaking down muscle while also not rebuilding it will actually slow down your metabolism. And, hypothesizing that people doing more cardio don’t want slower metabolisms, they need to counteract the muscle loss. This is where resistance training comes in.

Can exercise help weight loss when you’re doing resistance training? Yes! Now, be aware that muscle is very dense and heavy compared to body fat, which is lightweight and “fluffy,” so the numbers on the scale may scare you at first. But don’t despair. Eventually, as you continue to train with weights and build back muscle tissue, your metabolism will become faster and faster, helping you naturally shed much more body fat than with cardio alone. And, as an added bonus, this kind of weight loss is permanent. Remember, the more muscle you have, the higher the number of calories you’ll need just to maintain your weight.

Can exercise help you lose weight, and if so, what’s the best plan of action? Yes, you can absolutely lose weight with the right combination of moderate cardio and regular resistance training. And we have plenty of plans to help you get the results you’re working so hard for!

• AMRAP Workouts: Get Fit in Only 20 Minutes a Day or Less
• The Complete 30-Minute Road-Trip Workout
• 6 Chair Exercises for a Full-Body Workout
• The 8-Week Beginner Workout Plan for All Ages
• 30-Day Home Workout Plan
• Drop Up to 3 Sizes with This 90-Day Workout Plan

And more!