Is weight lifting important if you want to lose weight?

Question

In addition to cardio?

Answer 1

light weight lifting, many reps will give you lean, defined muscles
heavy weights, few reps will make your muscles big
when you do cardio you lose fat AND muscle so yes, you have to do light weights to not lose muscles because they are the ones that need calories to fuel them. if you lose muscle your body needs less calories.

Answer 2

Absolutely! However, by saying weight lifting, it makes it sound as if you will only bulk up, which is obviously not the goal here. Resistance training sound much more your style. Your muscle energy is called glycogen. This is made up of simple carbohydrates. When you start to exercise, your body burns the glycogen first, whether you are doing cardio, or resistance training. After the glycogen burns, THEN your body burns fat. I recommend a 5-10 minute warm-up, followed by 35-45 minutes of resistance training (3 sets, 15-18 reps for sleek, toned muscle definition). After the res. training, go do your 30-45 minute cardio workout when your body is in the fat burning mode. By doing this, you may not drop weight, but you will notice that your clothes fit looser, and you feel better. Also, without knowing how much you weigh, I would say you should take in about 1550-1700/day, but take them in over 5-6smaller meals. This gives your body a sense of constant fuel coming in, so there is no need to store any calories for later use (fat). In doing this alone you should notice a change in your clothes as well as your energy level. Sorry to ramble, but I do this for a living.

Answer 3

No. Muscle weighs more than fat, so if you lifted weights alone you would actually gain weight. Ideally you want to do both weights and cardio for total health, but if it's just weight loss you're concerned with, concentrate on the cardio. Be sure to do it for more than 20 minutes at a time - you don't start burning stored fat until your heartrate is up for that long.

Answer 4

if you lose a lot of weight during cardio your just going to have saggy skin and it won't look very good! so weight lifting puts some muscle on your bones and makes you look a lot more fit! so no weight lifting isn't important to lose weight but you will look a lot better!

Answer 5

Here is how important:

Lifting weights gives more density to your muscles, they tone up and become firm. Dense muscles consume more energy. If you control you sugar and carbohydrate intake, these muscles will be burning fat while you sleep (otherwise they will just burn the sugar from the carbs, it is easier for the metabolism, than removing well stablished fat to burn.)
Isn't that great? A real "beauty" sleep.
Go for it! Make sure someone shows you how to lift properly.

Answer 6

Absolutely, because the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn even when you're not exercising. In other words, your resting metabolic rate increases. And the stronger you get, the more muscle you build and the effect just keeps increasing.

Answer 7

If your aim is to improve your physique, you'll look a lot more sexy with lady muscles than with plain old fat. And if if you do weight stuff, it will burn the fat that is in places you don't want, meaning you can fit into anything your regular size, etc.

Answer 8

lifting weights in a good thing, it does tone the body areas that need defining, and also increasing muslce burns calories faster than normal dieting.