Thread: Cardio for losing fat!?

Hi everyone,

I have recently started a weight loss program which consists of 30-45 minutes of cardio 5 days a week. I am 24 years old female, weigh 140lbs and about 5'5". I was wondering if I can increase the length of my workout to an hour? On top of that, I am also looking into reducing fat and increasing lean muscle. How can I accomplish that and what diet (in terms of pre-workout and post-workout food) should I eat? I am very new to bodybuilding and workingout, so i really appreciate your help. Thank you all so much for replying!

Read this: http://training.fitness.com/weight-l...oss-51064.html

By the time you're finished reading it, you'll realise that cardio isn't that important while strength training is for your goals, so you'll hopefully reconsider your entire training strategy here.

For pre/post-workout nutrition, anything that gives you sustained energy during the session and has a decent amount of protein in it will be fine. I just drink milk before and after training, works a charm.

You can train for as long as you like, so long as you don't hurt yourself in the process and can recover from it. You probably don't need to train for more than 45min, but extending your time in the gym to 1hr isn't likely to have any negative repurcussions that could have been avoided by going only 30-45min. I currently train 2-3 hours at a time out of necessity (if I could abbreviate my sessions any further and still achieve what I want to in each session, I would), but you and I have different goals, and more importantly are at very different levels of experience and conditioning. When I started out, I could barely last 30min, and it was several years before I could productively train beyond 1hr - now if I only go for 1hr then a whole lot of important things in my training have been left undone.

The fastest way to lose fat.. is to replace it with muscle.. and the fastest way to burn calories to create muscle is strength training, not body building. i think you should go to google and search up "stronglifts 5x5" you will learn everything you need to know without me putting in a rank paragraph for you to read.