⭑ Did you know strength-training is a fat-killer ✔ It kills our killer fat
⭑ Endurance or strength training for fat reduction ✔ Here's how cardio helps
⭑ Why strength training plus cardio burns more fat than cardio alone ✔
⭑ Try this cardio plus strength combo medium to high intensity set ✔ 3 minutes

All strength to Ukraine 🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦

Hello,

I trust you are well and active.

It's not surprising that people often find it difficult to know how to start exercising and what are the best exercises. Here are two headlines I came across this week:
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"Strength Training Outperforms Cardio for Reducing Visceral Fat", and

"Endurance Training Rewires Fat Metabolism".

So should you prioritise strength training or aerobic training?

This week I am going to break this down, because the answer, applied, will optimise your healthspan.

In item #1 I'll decode how strength training outperforms cardio for reducing visceral fat and why this matters.

Then I'll tackle how endurance training rewires your fat metabolism and why knowing this matters and what to do about it.

And in item #3 I'll bring the two findings together to give you a proactive, relatively simple guide to the best combination of strength training and cardio.

Do these two stretch-type exercises daily and relieve your lower back and neck —see item #4.
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Your podcast of this newsletter is here (7 min).

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01 How Strength Training Cuts Visceral Fat Best

Visceral fat is dangerous fat, in comparison to subcutaneous fat. It lies deep in our abdominal cavity and surrounds our organs.

⇒ Excessive visceral fat is linked to a higher risk of serious health issues, including heart disease, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.

In other words visceral fat quantity is inversely related to your healthspan. It's best to reduce it. The first article I saw recommended strength training as the preferable way to reduce it because:

• Resistance training helps build muscle, which is metabolically active tissue. This means that muscle requires more energy at rest compared to fat tissue. By increasing your muscle mass, you can boost your overall metabolism, leading to more efficient fat burning throughout the day—even when you're not exercising.
• The boost in lean muscle mass translates into a higher resting metabolic rate. This metabolic advantage makes resistance training especially valuable for long-term body composition management and prevention of visceral fat accumulation.

What this means for you: Add resistance training to your routine to not only reduce visceral fat but to also maintain the lower level of fat you achieve.

This is good news and bad news. Regular resistance training is effective in reducing your visceral fat, but not continuing to exercise will allow it to reaccumulate quite quickly. One study found a staggering 25% increase in visceral fat during a one-year follow-up period with study participants who did not continue to exercise.

Strength training is most effective if you do it at least 2 times per week:

• Start small, body weight exercises or barbells etc, get instruction, gradually increase the weight, or the time under tension up to 40 seconds of load during each rep e.g. whether doing a pushup or a deadlift.
• Do compound movements like squats, deadlifts, and barbell rows as these maximise calorie burn and are most effective in cutting down visceral fat.

⇒ Resistance training builds your muscle mass. This larger mass requires more calories to operate and if you do not compensate by eating more then you will lose weight as a result of resistance training.

Alert: Ironically your weight can increase as a result of strength training. But this is "exchanging" bad fat for good muscle and hence a healthier body composition. The latter should be your goal once you have shed excess weight.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

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02 How Endurance Training Rewires Your Fat Metabolism

Now, is this a counter-claim by endurance exercise that it is the fat killer?
​
Well, yes. But in a different way, so it is actually complementary to strength exercise.

A groundbreaking 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis analysed 116 randomized clinical trials involving 6,880 participants with overweight or obesity. The results were compelling: aerobic exercise was associated with significant reductions in visceral fat.

For every additional 30 minutes of weekly aerobic exercise, researchers observed a meaningful reduction in visceral fat.

⇒ 150 minutes per week of moderate to vigorous intensity aerobic exercise resulted in clinically significant reductions in waist circumference and body fat—both indirect indicators of visceral fat loss.

This works because aerobic exercise stimulates "cardiovascular adaptions" in our muscles which improve their ability to burn fat. Think about it as a distance runner. As you train your body to run further and further your muscles are developing their metabolic ability to burn all the fat that they can find in your body. The muscles become super efficient at breaking it down so that they can last the distance.

Untrained muscles allow the fat to float by without being captured by the muscle.

What this means for you: It's not so easy to fit in 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise each week, unless you are a runner, or a cyclist or can get it done in a few gym classes. Never-the-less that should be your target.

⇒ A workable way would be to fit in 5 or more 30-minute brisk walks a week. Nice in the morning, great after dinner and before bed.

Related: ​​​​​​​Thanks To Magic 3 This Meditation I Learnt in Indonesia Calms Me Before Bed​​​​

@Medium - Follow me on Medium ↗, covering ⭑food, ⭑brain, ⭑body, ⭑life

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03 Reconciliation - Strength And Endurance Training Team Up

So what's going on between strength training and cardio - can they both be the visceral fat killers?

It turns out that they both can claim responsibility. However they affect fat loss differently:

• Zone 2 cardio (low-intensity, steady-state) helps the body improve its ability to burn fat as a fuel source, making it great for long-term fat metabolism.
• Zone 4 cardio (high-intensity intervals) boosts metabolism and burns more calories, even after exercise.
• But strength training is just as important, if not more so, when it comes to long-term fat loss.

Here’s what we know:

• Zone 2 cardio enhances fat oxidation, meaning you burn more fat for energy over time.
• Zone 4 (HIIT) increases metabolic rate and improves how your body burns fat post-exercise.
• Strength training builds lean muscle, which increases your resting metabolic rate—meaning you burn more calories even at rest.
• Strength training also improves fat quality, helping to replace harmful visceral fat with healthier fat stores that don’t contribute to metabolic disease.

⇒ Resistance training leads to redistributed fat, meaning more fat in healthier subcutaneous deposits (under our skin) rather than harmful visceral areas. AND, strength training prevents or reduces fat infiltration in our muscles (Intramuscular Fat), especially as we age. IF is an enemy of our healthspan see this newsletter.

What this means for you: If fat loss is your goal, relying only on cardio isn’t the best strategy. Strength training ensures your body burns more fat at rest, and when combined with cardio, it creates the most effective fat-loss system.

A simple plan: Train with weights 2 or 3 times a week to build muscle, incorporate Zone 2 cardio for endurance and fat oxidation, and add occasional HIIT workouts to rev up your metabolism.

The best fat-loss strategy isn’t just about burning calories—it’s about training your body to burn fat more efficiently over the long term. Strength training plus cardio does that better than cardio alone.

⇒ Also, it's important to remember that fat is an important organ. Having the right fat in the right place (not visceral fat or intramuscular fat), and not too much off it, is an enabler of a better lifespan.

Related: Too Much Omega-6 Can Harm Us, Unless We Eat More Omega-3​​​​​​​​​​​

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04 The HIIT Strength Cardio Combo

Our exercise of the week is ... a HIIT strength cardio combo which will get you all the benefits discussed in the items above - strength and cardio at moderate to high intensity.

Combining strength training and cardio improves your heart health, bone density, fat metabolism, and mobility, all of which contribute to a longer healthspan—the years of life spent in good health, free from chronic disease.

And the right mix of exercises will boost your energy, prevent muscle loss, and reduce the risk of conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and osteoporosis—helping you stay strong and active.

What this means for you: Try this combo 2 to 3 times a week, you could make it your strength exercise routine if you have no equipment and don’t go to a gym. You'll still need to put in the time ~150 minutes, for best metabolic results from cardio.

HIIT for Strength & Cardio (2-3x per week)

• 30 seconds bodyweight squats → 30 seconds rest
• 30 seconds push-ups → 30 seconds rest
• 30 seconds jump rope or fast walk → 30 seconds rest
• Repeat 3-5 times

⇒ Three minute sets done 3 times means 9 minutes - well worth it. To keep up the intensity do the 5 reps which adds up to 15 minutes of very healthy exercise.

Level-up: Want more, hold a dumbbell at your chest height, both hands, when squating.

Pro-tip: If you have an Apple watch set the Functional Exercise going, hit stop as soon as you finish the last jump rope item, and then check your heart drop in 20 seconds (it does this automatically). Aim for 20 beats per minute drop, and as you get fit you will see it stretch out to a 40-ish beat drop. This means that your body is very adaptive to hard exercise. The opposite is when your heart rate takes forever to slow down because of sympathetic nervous system dominance which is what you feel when you have to sit down for while even minutes after finishing exercising.​​​​​​​​​​​​

Thanks for reading!

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>> My Latest Blog Post: Energise Your Golden Years: Boosting Your Desire to Exercise with Gut-Healthy Foods​

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