In this video Kamilah Stevenson addresses the common dilemma of choosing cardio or weightlifting for weight loss. She explains that losing weight can come from fat or muscle, and preserving muscle is crucial, especially as we age, to protect joints and overall health. Stevenson emphasizes that diet and hormonal regulation (particularly insulin) are the primary drivers of fat loss, outweighing any exercise modality. While cardio burns more calories during the activity, resistance training boosts metabolism for 24‑36 hours post‑workout and builds muscle that increases resting calorie expenditure. She notes that high‑intensity interval training (HIIT) can enhance post‑exercise calorie burn and stimulate growth hormone. Given time constraints, she recommends prioritizing resistance training because it offers the most metabolic and health benefits, but also suggests incorporating cardio for additional calorie burn. The overall recommendation is a “trio” approach: (1) optimize nutrition to manage hormones and insulin, (2) prioritize weight/resistance training to build muscle and boost metabolism, and (3) include cardio (any intensity) to further increase calorie expenditure. She also highlights that more muscle allows better carbohydrate tolerance and supports joint, immune, and chronic disease health, effectively helping to reverse aspects of aging.
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Kamilah Stevenson. So there's often so many questions that surrounds itself around exercise and which way, um, should you go to lose weight or to burn fat or burn calories or however the question is formulated. And a lot of people wrestle between cardio and weight loss, and some people tend to lean more towards one than the other. But it's always a question of, you know, what is the best route? Now, when we're talking about losing weight, for example, it's a very broad topic because you don't know if the weight loss is coming from your fat or is it coming from your muscles. Okay, and so as you get older and as you begin to age, um, it's not really good to start to burn through— burn calories through your muscle, um, because your muscle is, uh, protective for your body, for your health. And you don't want to start doing that as you get older because it can cause some risk with, um, joint problems and weakness. And, you know, again, as you get older, you really want to build muscle. And so when you're talking about weight loss, some people just get on the scale and they try to figure out what number they're going to hit. But the thing that we really got to work on is making sure that first of all, we're burning fat. And what does it take to burn fat and not compromise burning muscle in the process? Now, if you do a lot of cardio, again, you don't know if you're going to start biting into your muscle, okay? And Again, I don't suggest that, you know. My biggest thing is when people are overweight or they have too much body fat is to burn fat, okay? Because there's a difference between burning calories and burning fat. Again, when you burn calories, you can lose weight, but we don't know if the weight is coming from the muscle or the fat, and we really need to burn fat, okay? So Um, burning fat, you know, is the topic of health and being able to progress our health and to— and being able to reverse our age. And burning fat also helps to prevent chronic disease, all right? Like, if you got too much fat around the belly, for example, you risk, um, increasing your liability, you know, to getting, um, heart problems, okay? So because belly fat is correlated to heart issues, okay? So, uh, we want to make sure that we don't have the belly fat, and just fat around the body in general can really protect your health. So, um, when it comes to burning fat, a lot of people are like, well, okay, if I'm going to burn fat, which one do I do? Do I do cardio? Do I do weightlifting? You know, what does that look like? And honestly, if, if you're looking for the quickest way to burn fat It actually comes in neither direction. Now, I'm not saying that you can't burn fat with exercise, but I'm saying there's something that can help you burn fat a lot quicker, and that's the food you eat. That's your diet and nutrition. So if you're looking to burn fat quickly, which is very important, like I said, then you want to address first your diet and your nutrition. Now, if you're talking about just in general burning calories, and yes, our bodies need to burn calories also, All right. And it's good, you know. And so if you're talking about that issue, then a lot of people ask, okay, well, which is the quickest way to burn calories? Is it lifting weight or is it cardio? All right. So cardio will actually burn more calories, but only when you're actually doing the cardio. So a lot of times after you do the cardio, you won't burn a whole lot of calories after that. Now, yes, high-intensity interval training will get you a little bit, more into burning calories after, and it will spark your human growth hormone, which helps your body to burn fat. So I do always suggest that for cardio, but any cardio can be good. However, I will still prioritize weightlifting over cardio, and the reason why is because when you lift weights, you may not burn as many calories while you're lifting weights, but you really help your metabolism. So your metabolic rate starts to change when you add more muscle mass. And even after lifting weights, um, as you boost your metabolism, sometimes your metabolism can be boosted 24 to 36 hours later, where your body will burn a little bit more calories at rest when you're doing nothing. And so the more muscle mass you have, the more calories you'll just burn just in general. So imagine if you're lifting weights and then you decide, okay, I want to lift weights and then I want to add cardio to this. Well, the same advantage is going to happen now for your cardio that won't happen for other people who don't lift weights. So when you're doing your cardio and you have muscle mass, you will burn more calories while you are exercising than somebody else who's doing cardio who don't have enough muscle mass. Okay. So the priorities are there. And I always suggest, like, if you're that person that's like, I only have a quick 15 minutes to work out today, and you're trying to juggle between the two, I always suggest resistance training because I feel like, you know, when it comes— as in, when you're looking at intentional exercise, um, times and moments and you are restricted with time, I would say choose, um, muscle building because it's hard to do that throughout the day just naturally unless you decide I want to do some bodyweight exercises in between work or in between doing other things. You know, you drop down, you do push-ups, you do squats and all of that. People are less likely to do that than they are to go for a walk or something in between their breaks. And so people usually have a little bit more access to doing, even if it's low intensity, they have more access to doing cardio throughout the day with just moving around. And depending on what kind of job you have, if you are on your feet and if you're moving and if you're doing things, you are getting that movement in. And so, and again, it's just easier to have access to do cardio throughout the day versus muscle building and resistance training. So again, I always prioritize building muscle because it takes a little bit more effort, you know, to do resistance training. And it, I mean, from immune health to joint health, you know, helping to be stronger, you know, reversing chronic disease, Being able to eventually help your metabolic rate is just really good. Reversing your age is just really good for you. There's so many benefits to weight training. But again, there's also some benefits to cardio. So, you know, I suggest doing a combination of both because you do want to be able to put your body in a predicament to burn fat, but also you don't want to compromise the— you don't want to burn calories to the point where you're compromising your muscle mass. So in order to burn fat, burn calories, whatever way you want to look at it, and not compromise your muscle mass and your muscle building, I just say do both. Although I do prioritize, uh, weight training and resistance training over, um, cardio. Now again, at the top of my list, I want to end with this and say that your diet and what you eat, your nutrition, your regimen to how you eat and the foods that you put in your body That is always going to be number one because, you know, there's a certain way that your, your, your body responds when you put certain foods in it where you start to get your hormones involved in the fat burning process. And there's certain hormones that can really help your body to burn fat, just like there's certain hormones that can make your body add fat to your body. But the quickest way is to really, um, Find out what kind of foods will help your body to burn fat, getting those hormones involved and having that hormonal response to really help you to burn fat. And then when you add the exercise on top of that, it's like the icing on the cake. When you adding the weight training and then you're doing some cardio, whether it's, you know, high intensity or low intensity, again, you'll put your body in a predicament to, uh, burn more calories just throughout the day. And also, honestly, a person who has more muscle mass can tolerate eventually even a little bit more carbs into their diet. For people who absolutely love carbs, um, because those carbs can be stored in the muscle, and the more muscle mass you have, the more room you have to be able to store carbs. And a lot of people don't have enough, and so the carbs wind up turning to fat and, um, it just causes a lot of havoc on the body. And, um, you know, I always want to say that you still want to always make sure that you're keeping your insulin levels, um, at a healthy place because again, your insulin is a hormone and it is definitely a fat-making hormone. And so we want to reduce that and again get our other hormones involved in burning fat. So I think the trio is always good. You know, make sure you eat healthy, make sure that you prioritize weight training and resistance training, and make sure you get some cardio in there. It's good to really try to work on all three.
