You don't actually need to do "real cardio" to lose or maintain weight

Now before anyone comes after me for spreading misinformation please note that I am not encouraging people to NOT do cardio. I think everyone should do some kind of cardio for their own health benefits and not necessarily just to lose weight.

For me, I end up having this standpoint almost every summer because it becomes painfully hot outside and doing any cardio other than swimming is borderline dangerous for someone like me who already sweats a lot anyway.

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I'm one of those people that would much rather go running in the snow than in the dead heat of summer because I can always put on a coat but there are only so many clothes that I can take off without getting arrested. I'm in pretty great shape but I am not yet confident enough to go running without a shirt on. I hope to reach that point at some point in my life but for now, I'll keep a shirt on. When I do go running in summer I return home completely drenched despite the fact that zero water has touched me. I hydrate enough so I am not concerned from a medical standpoint, but in my mind this is a miserable experience that I would prefer to avoid.

I also HATE running on treadmills and refuse to do it.

Thankfully, for any of you people out there like me that somewhat enjoy lifting weights, you can adjust your workout and burn almost as many calories by doing that then you would if you were jogging. There are actually a lot of studies that have been done that show that exclusively weight training can actually be more beneficial towards weight loss than cardio is anyway.

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The above image comes from a very interesting article that details how lifting weights results in fewer calories burned while you are doing it, but overall more calories burned because of the after-effects that it has on your body and how many calories you will burn after you are at rest. I prefer lifting weights over almost any cardio, so this is fantastic news to me. This isn't just the opinion of some influencer that is trying to sell supplements either, the information in that and many other articles is based on scientific research that has been peer-reviewed. This isn't some GNC statement, it is information from years of research.

There are ways to make weight lifting more aerobic as well and depending on your gym's situation and how crowded it is, you can actually turn lifting weights into a cardio workout as well. It's called "not taking breaks and lifting lighter loads." It's not terribly scientific but can be proven simply by having a heart rate monitor and doing exactly what the program says.

Most people when they lift take the usual approach of "do one set of 12, then rest/look at your phone for several minutes, then do it again." There is nothing wrong with this approach but if you just step the weight down a bit and do a wide variety of exercises utilizing all body parts or at least a lot of them, you can keep your heart rate up for a prolonged period of time.

This isn't going to contribute to muscle mass if you are bulking, but I usually consider these sorts of days to be my days where I am simply reminding my muscles that they are still going to be used, without putting them under too much duress. In a way these can be seen as my "rest days." I will lift about 50% of my max but I take no breaks whatsoever. I also don't put a great deal of thought into what exercise I am going to do next but mostly I just try to not utilize the same muscle groups two times in a row.

I am able to keep my heart rate at around 125 using this method and when I run I would only be slightly higher than that anyway. You can use this chart to determine what your target heart rate should be if you want to use this gym method.

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It might surprise you how easy it is to get your heart rate to 120BPM and there is only one way to find out.

My method during these sessions is to keep my heart rate above 120 for 30 minutes to an hour, which honestly, would be all I was doing if i was running / jogging outside anyway.

So if it is too hot to go for a run outside but you do have access to a gym fret not. I actually much prefer this method of weight management to running anyway. Perhaps you will as well.

_{From skinny to fat and back over the course of 20+ years}