I have 30lbs to lose and I know for a fact that I have a lot of fat to lose. I have 2 questions:

1. Should I bother with strength exercises eventhough I haven't lost any of this fat yet?

2. How much cardio should I do a day? How about strength?


Hope to hear from someone soon, because I was told by a friend I shouldn't be doing much strength workouts and to focus more on cardio because I need to lose weight first, and tone up later

It depends what your goal is. If you just want to lose weight your diet is the most important thing. I've lost over 30 pounds the last 5 months and can count on one hand how many times I've exercised!

However, if you want to actually get healthy, fit and toned you should definitely do some cardio and strength training. I'm too cheap to get a gym membership and it's been too cold to workout outside which is the only reason I haven't exercised.

As for how much you should do, I'd recommend doing as much as you can for how much time you have. For me, during the week that means only about 40 minutes a couple days (that's the plan at least!)

That's interesting. Yes, Ive definitely made changes in my diet. Thanks for the reply! and congratulations on the superb weight loss!

That's what I thought, but that friend of mine kept on saying how my muscles may get toned but there's no point if there's a layer of fat covering them.

But I'll go with your advice anyway. Yeah, I've made changes to my diet.

No offense. But your friend is giving rubbish advice. I've got loads more to lose which means I've got a lot more fat covering my muscles and I can see muscle definition underneath all that fat. Everyone should do strength training - for looks, for health and for functional fitness.

Besides, when you lose the weight - what do you want to see???

You do not have to lift weights to do strength training. Certain kinds of yoga and pilates will make you strong as well. I'm not criticising lifting at all. But I'm not doing much right now (though I do do some weighted exercise and try to lift once a week and I do a sport which requires a lot of strength.) During the off-season I will start lifting weights more seriously.

Also, when you lose fat, you also lose muscle which will lower your metabolism. Lifting weights, doing strength exercises, etc will help you maintain your current muscle so that when you lose weight, a higher percentage of the weight lost is actually fat.