There's a big misconception in the general population about the best way to lose weight. Most people think it's cardio. In reality, cardio does almost nothing for weight loss and fat loss. Instead, if you want to burn the fat off your body, the fastest and healthiest way to do it is through weightlifting.
==> The Problem with Cardio
The problem with cardio as a fat burning tactic is that it simply doesn't work. Let's look at the math.
An average person might expect to burn about 300 calories from a brisk jog in an hour. However, what fitness professionals don't tell you about is how many calories your resting metabolic rate would consume anyway.
Even if you did nothing by lie in bed, you would burn about 120 calories. That means all that jogging really only burned you 180 calories. That's about half a latte.
Most people after doing a cardio workout feel like they need to eat a little more, and more than compensate for their workout with their increased appetite.
The result? Cardio doesn't do much at all for burning fat or losing weight.
==> The Second Problem
Another common problem with cardio is that much of the gains athletes experience come not from improved physique, but from more efficient muscle movements.
Once you get the body used to a certain movement, it can perform that movement much more efficiently.
A runner might think he's improving if he can jog for an hour instead of 30 minutes. But in reality, he's not developing much real muscle. His system is just getting better at the movements needed in jogging.
If you put that same jogger on a bike, he won't be much better than he would have been before he started running. Why? His legs and his body hasn't actually developed that much in capacity.
==> Why Bodybuilding Burns Fat
Bodybuilding burns fat. This seems counter-intuitive. After all, everyone is saying that to lose weight, you need to do cardio.
The reality is, the biggest burner of calories in your life is your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). You can expect to burn between 1600 to 1800 calories a day if you're a man, 300 calories fewer if you're a woman, just from your BMR.
The best way to increase this number? Build muscle. Increasing your body's muscle mass by just 5 pounds will increase your BMR by about 400 to 600 kcal per day.
That's a massive increase. If you take your body fat percentage down and the amount of muscle in your body up, you'll naturally burn fat. It's just what your body will do.
The simple truth to fat loss and weight loss is this: build muscle, then let nature do the rest of the work.