“You have to do cardio to lose weight.”
You do not have to do cardio to lose weight.
If you dislike running or cannot do it, you can still lose weight, and lifting helps make the weight you lose mostly fat. Cardio is worth adding when you can, for your fitness and a bit of extra calorie burn, but skipping it is no reason to give up on losing weight.
Start with a modest cut in what you eat and two lifting sessions a week. Add walking or any cardio you like when you are ready.
Many randomized trials show people lose weight on a diet with no cardio at all, and a 6-month randomized trial found dieters who lifted lost the same weight as dieters who did cardio. The trials are consistent and the outcome is direct, so the claim that cardio is required is clearly contradicted.
You do not have to do cardio to lose weight. In a 6-month trial of dieting older adults, those who lifted weights instead of doing cardio lost about the same weight (about 19 versus 20 pounds) and slightly more fat (about 16 versus 14 pounds). In the trials, the best approach was a modest calorie deficit, lifting to keep muscle, and cardio added for extra calorie burn and fitness: in that trial, dieters doing both cardio and lifting kept more muscle than the cardio-only group, gained as much aerobic fitness, and gained the most in everyday physical function.
Eating fewer calories than you burn is what drives weight loss. In pooled trials of obese older adults on a calorie-cut diet, the diet-only groups lost about 10 pounds of weight and 8 pounds of fat in 12 to 24 weeks with no exercise at all. Across 114 randomized trials, lifting combined with eating less cut fat by about 12 pounds compared with no training, with muscle held steady. Cardio does help: with no diet change, exercise of any type takes off about 3 to 8 pounds in trials of overweight adults. The cardio in the 6-month dieting trial was treadmill walking, stationary cycling and stair climbing, not running.
Can cardio help you lose weight?
Yes. With no diet change, cardio takes off about 2.5 pounds more scale weight than lifting over a few months. In the 6-month dieting trial it also raised aerobic fitness about twice as much as lifting alone (17 to 18 percent versus 8 percent). It is a useful tool, just not a required one.
- Villareal DT, Aguirre L, Gurney AB, et al. Aerobic or resistance exercise, or both, in dieting obese older adults. N Engl J Med. 2017;376(20):1943-1955. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1616338. PMID: 28514618
- Sardeli AV, Komatsu TR, Mori MA, Gaspari AF, Chacon-Mikahil MPT. Resistance training prevents muscle loss induced by caloric restriction in obese elderly individuals: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Nutrients. 2018;10(4):423. DOI: 10.3390/nu10040423. PMID: 29596307
- Lopez P, Taaffe DR, Galvao DA, et al. Resistance training effectiveness on body composition and body weight outcomes in individuals with overweight and obesity across the lifespan: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Obes Rev. 2022;23(5):e13428. DOI: 10.1111/obr.13428. PMID: 35191588
- Bellicha A, van Baak MA, Battista F, et al. Effect of exercise training on weight loss, body composition changes, and weight maintenance in adults with overweight or obesity: an overview of 12 systematic reviews and 149 studies. Obes Rev. 2021;22(Suppl 4):e13256. DOI: 10.1111/obr.13256. PMID: 33955140
- Schwingshackl L, Dias S, Strasser B, Hoffmann G. Impact of different training modalities on anthropometric and metabolic characteristics in overweight/obese subjects: a systematic review and network meta-analysis. PLoS One. 2013;8(12):e82853. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0082853. PMID: 24358230