Cardio vs. Weights

I'm sure this has been asked before, but I'll ask again anyway.

I know both are very important, and I do both in every workout. However, I've been really trying to get more toned and work more with weights than I do on the treadmill. I used to do cardio for a lot longer than weights and abs. But the thing is, I always burn more calories when doing cardio than when I'm lifing weights (or so my activity log tells me). Should I cut back on my calories and do more weights, or just keep going the way I am?

For the record, my workout is usually: jogging for 15 minutes, weights for 10, stationary bike HIIT style for 15 minutes, and 5-10 minutes of stretching and abs.

Wasn't sure if I'd put this in Fitness or Weight Loss.

Keep your calories the same or even increase them.  You can try something like this.

Monday - weights

Tuesday - cardio

Wednesday- circuit traing or weight

Thursday- Cardio

Friday-  Body weight exercises(push ups sit ups etc)

Saturday-  Cardio

Sunday- recovery day(meaning dont work out)

When you lift weights(heavy) your body will stay in a "calorie burning state" even after completion.

You would end up burning more with 30mins of lifting heavy vs 30mins of SS cardio. Hierarchy of fat loss.

And I have no idea what jdunckel is talking about, as usual.

I burn tons of calories doing circuit training. Squats, deadlifts, chest press, lunges, overhead press, with little rest. Get a heart rate monitor that counts calories and you'll see your heart rate go thru the roof. I actually can't do this for more then 30 minutes. I do some of the videos at bodyrock.tv or I just do a full body program. The trick is to keep your heart rate up, you'll get stronger and work your heart at the same time. 

I'm not sure what exercises weights for 10 minutes would be - there's a huge difference between for example performing some Javonek complexes for conditioning, Tabata front squats for lactic acid threshold training or one max-effort set of back squats -  and doing triceps kickbacks.

 And fitness is task-specific enough that in some measure the answer to your question is - what do you want to be able to do? If you're just after fat loss the hierarchy article is a reasonable guide to how to prioritize your available training time - get in 3 hours of solid lifting a week and any time you've got left after that you use for endurance training. By contrast, if you're after improved sports performance in a skill-based sport strength training might not have much of any athletic transfer; there's not a whole lot of correlation between your bench press and your ability to steal a base.

 Now, for straight up calorie burn endurance training will beat out strength training over the long haul - if you've got more than 2-3 hours to train each day. Most people don't have that kind of time for their training though and need to go for the high-intensity stuff instead; the rule is to work as hard as you can in the time you've got available. It's all contextual but it's not really that complicated once you get that point.

 Intensity and duration is by necessity inversely correlated; if you've got 6-8 hours to work with doing HIIT for 20 minutes and then being so wiped out you can't do anything else the rest of the day makes no sense; so does going at an ultra-marathon jog pace when what you've got is 15 minutes to get your pulse up on your lunch break.

  Of course, you should also note that the activity log classification of "Light/moderate Weight Lifting" is based on some sort of activity which burns less calories than Vacuuming. I have no idea what sort of workout that would be, but I suspect it involves pink dumbbells- if you're doing any kind of lifting that involves you breaking a sweat the least you should be logging it as is the next level up.

I for one can burn 2 times the calories lifting than I do in an hour long cardio.  I am currently doing NROL fat loss III and its a killer.  4 weight lifting sets of 10 - 12 no rest then one minute rest and repeat.  My heart rate has gotten as high as 168 - not bad for a 50 year old woman IMHO.  I can't run or jump rope or bike ride fast enough to get my heart rate up that high doing strictly cardio.  

Weights is the best cardio- but you need to be sure you are lifting to your maximum not just doing curls and kickbacks.  

I do my weight routine and then about 15 minutes on the treadmill doing a bit of interval and cooling down.  

When I do my step aerobic class on my non lifting days my heart rate gets to about 145 for a bit but I can't keep it up there for long.  I also can only burn about 350 cals in the class vs tonights weight lifting burn of 650 in 50 minutes.

You need to lift hard and heavy. 3 days a week, not consecutive. You want one or two recovery days in between lifting. That is when your muscles actually grow and repair themselves. 10 minutes is not enough. What are you doing in that 10 minutes? How heavy? What type of weights. Many women think they need to lift light weights with a lot of reps and that is wrong. You want fewer reps with heavy weights.