Good Morning America just had this guy (didn't catch his name) on who theorizes in his book that cardio is a waste of time for weight loss because it increases your appetite without burning as many calories as we think. His recommendation is to do strength training 3 times per week for 20 minutes and to calorie count. He says the weight lifting will change your body shape and will speed up your metabolism while the cardio is just a waste of time. He cited a study where fit ladies ran 45 minutes 3 times per week on a treadmill and they actually gained 1 pound rather than losing after a year.
He said that most Americans underestimate their daily caloric intake by 600 calories and that, while most diets are against calorie counting because its supposedly too difficult, he views calorie counting as very easy, do-able and necessary for weight loss.
He also said that you get a better cardio work out through strength training because he said the key to cardio health is not keeping the heart rate up but shocking it by going up then suddenly dropping then up again. This happens when you lift weights.
As far as whether I agree with this, plenty more study is needed on whether cardio health can be achieved with just strength training after so many studies showing the opposite. But personally, I used to maintain my weight by lifting fairly heavy weights 2 to 3 times per week for about 25 minutes. I would do 2 sets of 12 to 15 repetitions as heavy as possible and would do one exercise for each body part, except 2 for my back, chest and legs (1 for each of the four shoulder muscles, 1 tri and 1 bicep, and a few abdominal exercises). I would be in and out of that gym so quickly, yet I was able to lose a few excess pounds and maintain 128 lbs eating quite a lot and not calorie counting (though I didn't go overboard I did eat totally normally and often on the high side of normal) with just a few minutes of weight lifting and no cardio.
These days I've been doing more cardio for some reason; I get kind of sick of weight lifting sometimes and usually take several breaks throughout the year - to my detriment I'm sure. I'm thinking I really need to get back to the weights.
What do you all think of this theory?