As you continue your journey to being healthy and fit, you hopefully have discovered that your biggest success will come from your diet. I have had periods in my life where my intense, regular workouts did not override my poor diet. I have also had times when my diet was on point, but I didn't exercise and I still lost at least one pound per week.
No one would argue that the best combination is a good diet and regular exercise. I have seen estimates that 70% of your weight loss success is from your diet and 30% is from exercise. As we have seen from a previous post, walking is the best type of exercise for weight loss. Also from a previous post, you should exercise at least 450 minutes per week for weight loss.
The next question is about strength conditioning or weight training. If you want to lose fat, most experts would agree that there are many benefits to strength training. However, you do not burn a lot of calories when lifting weights. You burn more calories doing cardio, consequently it is the better choice when your primary goal is to lose weight.
I'm sure that you have heard that muscle burns more calories than fat and this is usually why most of us add weight to our fitness routine. Recently I read that every "three pounds of muscle you gain, you can expect to burn an extra 120 calories a day." What this translates to is that once per month you will lose an extra pound.
You reach your goal weigh one pound at a time so once you feel comfortable, add weights two to three times per week to get to make your journey to healthy and fit a little shorter.
