When we think of resistance training we usually only think of it in terms of adding muscle, and meatheads in the gym. The reality is, there is so much more to a well designed program, especially when compared to cardio for losing fat.
Caloric Cost
When we are trying to lose weight we must be in a deficit of calories. If we are in a deficit, then our body kicks into survival mode. If you are simultaneously throwing tons of cardio at it, it will adapt to keep you alive. What that ends up looking like is burning through muscle and holding onto fat.
Cardio Adaptation
Muscle is calorically expensive to have. Your body needs a damn good excuse to hold onto it. Fat on the other hand, is a great energy source. Your body will find any reason it can to always keep fat stored away for a rainy day. You are priming yourself for getting the total opposite result of what you want. Instead of a lean, muscular body, you end up looking like a smaller, flabbier version of yourself.
Having Muscle Burns MORE Calories
On the flip side, having muscle does the opposite. Because it is so calorically expensive to have, you burn a lot more calories at rest to keep it around. Now, keeping in mind your body will find a way to get rid of it, you need a sufficient enough stimulus to tell your body not to do that.
Resistance training is that stimulus. When you are exposing your body to external load on the muscles, again, survival kicks in and your body realizes it better keep this muscle if it realizes this external stimulus isn’t going away.
2-3 days of resistance training is a great place to start to give a frequent enough and intense enough stimulus to retain any hard earned muscle you’ve gained prior to dieting. Focus on full body, compound movements like the overhead press, bench press, deadlift, squat, and row. You don’t have to train to failure. Choose a weight you can hit a given rep range while leaving 2-3 reps left in the tank.
Cardio Isn’t Muscle Building
Cardio isn't a sufficient stimulus. It’s not a strong enough load or form of tension to keep any impressive level of muscle mass on. This is why you see marathon runners are very skinny. Excess weight is the last thing the body wants for aerobic work. Even Olympic sprinters who have insanely muscular legs only have those legs in large part to the focus their coaches place on heavy compound work in the gym. They do squats and deadlifts to help feed their explosiveness.
Metabolic Damage
From a nutrition and recovery standpoint, the hardest thing I have to tell a client is lower their cardio. They usually come to me doing 5-7 days of cardio at 45 minutes a piece. They’re eating less than 1500 calories and still not losing weight. That doesn’t make sense. Let’s put aside for a second the huge factor that they probably aren’t tracking their food and thus, most likely eating more than they want to admit. If you truly are eating that low of calories, with that much caloric output, and NOT losing weight, that is metabolic damage.
Not to worry though, this is easily fixed. It just takes time. Depending on how much weight you are trying to lose, even the best dieters need a break if the goal is too big. You should not be dieting longer than 2-3 months without a 1-4 week break back at maintenance calories, with your cardio cut in half. This allows your body and metabolism to rev back up and return to normal. Clients always get afraid of this because all that cardio and little eating is what got them this far. But our bodies can’t sustain it. This is why people end up binging and gaining all the weight back and then some.
You have to play the long game. Spending 1-4 weeks taking a break to eat normal is a small step back in the overall journey to hitting your goal. It can be the difference of keeping the weight off a year from now or gaining it all back. Focus on building good habits and control over your body. Think of it this way. If you can train yourself to ween off thst cardio and take a break then you as a dieter, have taught yourself the most valuable lesson in longevity. You now have mastery of knowing when to switch gears to diet, and when to pause and take a break when life gets in the way. It also allows you not to fear if the scale bumps up a couple pounds because you’ve already proven you can jump right back into weight loss only as needed.
