By Michael Carrera, MSc.
and Natasha Vani, MSc., ATCP

Losing weight is all about expending more calories than you consume throughout the day. It is well known that this may be achieved by eating well and exercising, but it is not commonly understood which exercise program is the best for burning the most calories in a day.

The two main programs to discuss are aerobic, or cardio, programs and resistance, or strength training, programs. Each program acts on your body in a different way, so they should be examined separately to determine which is best for promoting weight loss.

An aerobic program usually consists of various forms of cardiovascular exercise performed three to six days per week. Assuming each session lasts 30 minutes and you are working at a moderate intensity, the caloric expenditure is easily about 300 calories per session. More challenging types of cardio and higher intensities may burn up to 500 calories in a 30-minute session.

Now, compare a cardio session to a resistance training session of equal duration. The resistance training session will burn roughly half the calories of the cardio session. The main reason for this is that during the cardio session your heart and your muscles are working continuously for 30 minutes. In a strength training session, after you take away the rest between sets and the rest between muscles worked, you are really only working for about 10 minutes.

So, does this mean that a session of cardio causes greater energy expenditure than a resistance training session of equal duration?

Yes, however there are other factors to consider which influence your caloric expenditure for the rest of the day after you have finished exercising.

Resting metabolic rate (RMR) is a term that is used often, but is not always understood. RMR is the minimum number of calories, or energy, required to fuel the vital functions required for life. These vital functions include things like breathing, circulating blood and mental function. When you exercise, your RMR increases due to chemical and hormonal changes and it stays elevated for quite some time after you exercise.

After a cardio session your RMR remains elevated for roughly two to three hours; however, the RMR has been reported to remain elevated for 10 to 15 hours after a resistance training session. After following a resistance training program for some time, your daily RMR may also increase as you build more muscle. Muscle is more metabolically active than fat, so individuals with more muscle mass usually have a higher resting metabolic rate. The average female’s metabolic rate is roughly 5 to 10% lower than an average male of the same size simply because of females’ genetic predisposition to having less muscle mass.

As you can see, while a cardio program provides an immediate higher caloric expenditure, a resistance training program provides a caloric expenditure of the same magnitude, but spaced over a longer period of time. So, the answer to the commonly asked question “Which program is better for losing weight” is simple: follow a program that includes a combination of both strength and cardio training. This way you will receive all of the short-term and long-term benefits of exercising.

If you are interested in following an exercise program, take a look at the Truestar Exercise Plan options, and notice that all are based on a carefully planned combination of cardio and resistance training.