People often believe that have to sprint on the treadmill or run up hundreds of stairs in order to burn enough calories to enable them to lose weight. In reality though, you don’t have to do this at all. A slow jog or fast walk is often enough to see results.

Just because you see everyone going to the gym doesn’t mean that you have to. They are spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars unnecessarily. Instead you can walk or jog for free in your neighborhood or in a local park. This way you can enjoy the scenery while getting a workout at the same time. A short 30 minute walk every day can result in noticeable benefits and is often recommended by doctors, especially for people who are significantly overweight or obese.

Incidental exercise can also have a huge effect on your health. If you take the stairs instead of the elevator, park a bit further away from your destination, or walk to your local shop instead of jumping in the car. Like this you can burn a few extra calories here and there every day without even noticing you are exercising. 

You can even do a few exercising in the comfort of your own home. Something even as simple as doing a few of jumping jacks or squats push ups or sit ups in between television shows or during commercials could do wonders for your waistline and silhouette.

The important thing is to not get too serious about it and look for everyday opportunities to get a bit of fun and efficient exercise worked in. There’s absolutely no need to pay a small fortune each month for a membership at a gym when you can do just as much at home or around town.

While everyone is different and some people will most certainly disagree, cardio is generally accepted to be the most effective for weight loss. The reason is simply that cardio is easier for those who are inexperienced at exercising. So even though a combination of cardio and weight training may be the most effective way to exercise for experience people, for beginners, walking, jogging, and other simple cardio exercises work best.  Of course, if you have been doing cardio exercise for some time, it makes sense to introduce weight training into your weekly fitness regime, especially if you are trying to lose weight.

Something as simple as jogging or even walking is usually enough in the way of cardio to lose weight. There’s no need to go on the treadmill everyday and sprinting until you run out of breath, you’ll only end up hurting yourself. Moderate exercise where you get your heart rate slightly elevated and you start to perspire a little is perfect. If you can’t carry on a conversation while working out then you are working out too hard.

As long as you also stick to a somewhat reasonable weight loss diet and make sure you aren’t eating too much before you go to bed, you should begin to see results fairly quickly. Just remember that you’re going to reap what you sow and the more work and effort you put into losing weight in regards to your diet and cardio, the more you’re going to actually lose.

As far as weight training goes, you would probably be best off working out with a qualified trainer to start with. Even though you can find weight training programs on the internet, you want to be sure you are performing the exercises correctly. If you don’t, you might end up with a back injury or a serious muscle strain. However, once you know what you are doing, weight training helps you to build muscle which in turn increases your metabolism which means you burn more calories throughout the day.

So there isn’t a simple answer as to whether cardio or weight training is better when trying to lose weight but surely, in the long term, a combination of both is going to provide the best results.