Hi there, I have a question and can’t find any answer on the internet, so hopefully somebody can help me here.

I (137 lb) burn 400 cal on treadmill in 40 min cycling between run/5.2ml and walk 4/ml. The question is if I will spend 40 min weight training, will I loose the same amount of calories? I know it is better to combine cardio with weight training, but I need to loose 8 lb by the end of the month for the event, so my priority is to burn as many cal as I can in those 40 min, as I have no more time available to stay in gym.

We burn more immediate calories doing cardio. But in the long run, lifting and building muscle will use more calories because muscles are the little furnaces in our bodies that burn calories. When you add a pound of muscle, your metabolism will increase and you'll burn somewhere around an extra 20-25 calories a day, awake, asleep, watching TV etc. It doesn't sound like much until the pounds of muscle start adding up.

There's also something called EPOC -- excess postexercise oxygen consumption -- that keeps your metabolism running high for 24 hours after a weight workout. So even if you don't see the calories being burned while you're in the gym, your body is using more calories for the rest of the day and into the next.

Both kinds of exercise -- cardio and weights -- are equally important partners in our weight loss!

You are basically saying your burn 10 calories per minute doing your cardio. Depending on what type and how vigorous it is, you will likely only burn 3 or 4 calories per minute doing it.

As the pp stated, your post workout burn will be higher after weight training than cardio. How about splitting the workout and doing 30 minutes cardio and 30 minutes weights?

Thank you for answers…I decided do not weight training until I reach my goal weight. From what I read on this forum , scale can move up after weight training , which doesn’t mean I will gain fat, but knowing myself it could be a big discourage for me.

After I reach my goal weight I will definitely start pumping the iron !