I'm about 5'6 249lbs im more of an apple shape body and i just started working out (gym) about 2 weeks ago and down 8lbs, i been told that i should do cardio first then weights for faster weight loss. how true is this, what is your opinion? Cardio- half hour at a 3.4 speed Elliptical- 5- 10mins Weights- 10- 15mins......... Am i doing it wrong?

to be honest, i'm not sure if it matters what you do first, just as long as you're doing it!

lately, i've been walking a mile or two (on an incline) on the treadmill as a warmup, then lifting. but sometimes i lift first, then walk as a cool down, but still at an incline. then add a half hour or so walk/run at night before it gets dark.

i'd say to do whatever you feel seems right, which isn't much help. i'm sure someone else will weigh in on the issue here though...

Especially when you first get started and have a lot of weight to lose, it doesn't really matter. The fact that you're exercising is going to burn calories and since you're not used to it, you'll get a greater effect at first.

After you lose weight and get in shape, and especially when you only have a few more pounds to go or if you're trying to build some serious strength and/or muscle, it can make a difference, but again, IMO, not THAT much. The recommendation is that if you're trying to build strength ormuscle, you should do your weight lifting first, before your muscles are fatigued from cardio. That will insure that you're putting the most effort into your lifting and getting the best/fastest results.

But .. here's the other thing. You shouldn't weight train every day unless you're working different muscle groups each day. You NEED a recovery period after a weight training session - at least 24 hours and preferably 48 hours. So I know a lot of people who don't do cardio at all on their weight days - they do it in the days between their weight training.

I personally lift 2x a week (sometimes 3x if I can fit in the extra workout). On the days I lift, I lift first and then do about 20 mins of mid level ss-cardio as a way to loosen up and stretch and cool down. On my dedicated cardio days, I do pretty hard core intervals (HIIT) alternating with 5k training.

Hope that helps some.

I think keeping a balance is important, I was in the army for 11 years and how we exercise is this:

Monday, wed and fridays we run

on Tuesday and thursday we work on muscles and we work the muscles until they fail. the important thing is not to work the same muscle groups each day, take a break inbetween. As for ABS you can work these muscles every day without a proble.

a few things to preface this reply
1. I am by no means an expert, this is just based on what I do
2. Welcome to the forums
3. Congrats on starting excersizing

ok now that that's out of the way here goes, I've found that when I do cardio before I do resistance training I don't have the strength that I usually do if I do resistance training first, so if I choose to do cardio and resistance training in the same day I always do resistance first. Also, depending on your diet, if you're in a caloric defecit for weight loss, meaning you're taking in less calories than your body needs to maintain itself in it's current form, then I wouldn't put too much of an emphasis on weight training, you need to do some, sure, but don't go crazy...from what I understand about our physiology, it is near impossible to build muscle while in a caloric defecit, because building muscle uses a huge amount of calories, i.e. you want to do your best to lose as much fat as possible before even thinking about building the muscle back, you can't do both at the same time, not for very long anyways...with that being said, the goal is to limit the amount of Muscle lost while in caloric defecit, because if you just diet and don't excersize, you will lose fat, but you will also lose a good deal of muscle as well...so the idea is to do resistance training or lift just for maintenance or to limit the amount of muscle lost, meaning it doesn't help to work your muscles until "failure" as someone else put it, i would do 3-5 sets of 8-12 reps at increasing weights until you can just barely finish your last set, and as said in a previous post, you want to make sure to give your muscles 24-48 hours for recovery. I lift on tues/thurs and do cardio on m,w,f because I am in a caloric defecit. I would read the stickies on this forum for better information, but that's my take on it, hope this helps.

I pretty much agree with everything above ... except this part:
In general, yes, it's mostly not possible to build muscle in a calorie deficit. If someone is extremely overweight or very out of shape or has never lifted before, then they will be able to build strength and muscle while in a deficit ... but that phase doesn't last long.

However, even though they can't build more muscle I don't think that means they should lessen the emphasis on weight training. I think emphasizing weight training in order to minimize muscle loss while dieting is important ... and lifting (done properly and intensely) is just as effective as part of a weight loss plan as cardio is, in many cases. In fact there are several people on this board who have lost weight w/out any (traditional) cardio at all - just by lifting weights.

I think it's a subtle thing, but I know as soon as I lost the "do more cardio and less weightlifting" mentality, I actually did better. It's not that I lost more weight, but my body reshaped itself. I was able to drop a pants size, even though I lost little weight by the scale, just by increasing my weight lifting intensity and reshaping my body.

@ Kara

I guess I just said that part of my earlier post because he/she (can't remember which) is just starting, and I know alot of the people that I know who just start excersizing get sore from lifting waaay to much and then use that as an excuse to take a week off...I don't know enough about it to discuss it in too much detail, good post though, what you said makes sense! also, as I said before, this is just my experience with my own body, I cannot effectively shed lbs by lifting alone, although I rarely do just resistance training, I do have lulls where i'm sick of cardio and I lift 5 days a week (in one now)

Very true! I think people either tend to go one way or the other when on their own - either they put the pedal to the metal and go waaaay overboard, or they don't push themselves hard enough and don't see any results. It's really hard to pick up weight lifting on your own, that's for sure.

/high five

I think keeping a balance is important

Um .. what?

No, actually that's not at all accurate.

Tom, with all respect ... you seem to have a very limited knowledge.

First of all you keep mentioning running and working out as two different things - I'm not sure what you're meaning by that. Are you saying that weight lifting *is* working out and cardio is something else? I'm confused.

Also, going "straight into lifting" *is* extremely effective in weight loss. You can burn more calories in 30 mins of lifting than you can in 30 mins of cardio.

I'm not saying anyone has to lift first, but your information is simply not correct.

dude ... I'm just sayin' absolutest statements like that are incorrect.

It doesn't matter WHICH you do before hand. Neither is better first when it comes to weight loss.

Oh rats. I banned Tom b/c he was a spammer. Had I seen this thread where he pulled out the "it worked for me" card I would've kept him around to play a bit.

Oh well.

Oh man, Steve. Now it looks like I'm talking to myself. I know I'm crazy, but I'm not that crazy - yet.