Cardio For Cutting — How Much You Should Do For Fat Loss

Updated: 28th December, 2025

This article is adapted from the content in the 3rd edition of our book, The Muscle and Strength Pyramid: Nutrition.

Cardio for Fat Loss

Cardio is one of the most common tools for supporting fat loss. However, it shouldn’t be your primary tool, and we’ll explain why shortly. First, let’s cover how to estimate the calories you burn during cardio. A simple method is to rate the effort of each cardio session using a Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) scale from 1 to 10, not to be confused with the RPE scale based on reps in reserve used for lifting. Then, combine your body weight and the duration of your cardio to estimate your energy expenditure.

Here’s a rough guide to caloric expenditure per 10 minutes, per pound of body weight:

• Light cardio (RPE 2–4): ~0.2 kcal/lb
• Moderate cardio (RPE 5–7): ~0.45 kcal/lb
• Vigorous cardio (RPE 8–10): ~0.7 kcal/lb

These values represent the additional calories burned above what you would burn from normal daily movement in the same time frame [1].

That last point is important: many people overestimate their caloric expenditure during cardio by relying on machines or wearable devices, without considering that you’re constantly burning energy, even at rest.

For example, if a cardio machine says you burned 400 kcal in a 30-minute session, that doesn’t mean you expended 400 extra calories above your baseline. If you typically burn 100 kcal during 30 minutes of regular, light activity, the net increase from cardio is only 300 kcal.

This distinction is critical when calculating your actual deficit. Only the additional calories you burn beyond what you’d normally expend count toward fat loss.

Cardio type, height, weight, and other variables affect these values, but they’re sufficient for estimation. For example, a 200 lb (91 kg) person performing moderate-intensity cardio would burn an additional 90 kcal in 10 minutes (0.45 x 200) above what they’d expend doing normal daily activity for the same time period. In an hour, they would burn approximately 540 kcal above baseline. 

Here’s a breakdown of estimated calorie expenditure for 10 minutes of cardio at three intensities and body weights.

These values illustrate one reason why cardio shouldn’t be your primary fat loss tool: you need to do a lot for it to contribute to your energy deficit meaningfully.

Even if your preference is to “eat more and move more,” there are limits to this strategy. Too much cardio can interfere with your ability to adapt to resistance training, particularly in the lower body. In a 2024 meta-analysis of 59 studies (1,346 participants), Huiberts and colleagues [2] reported a small but consistent negative effect on lower-body strength from combining cardio and lifting. This interference stems from both:

• Physiological factors, like competing endurance vs. resistance adaptations.
• Practical factors, like accumulated fatigue and recovery limitations.

Fortunately, you can reduce this effect by separating cardio from lifting sessions [3]. Anecdotally, choosing low-impact forms of cardio (e.g., cycling, incline walking) may also help.

Lastly, this research focuses on actual endurance training that elicits cardiovascular adaptations, not the low-intensity cardio often used for fat loss. If you keep your cardio low in volume, short in duration, or at a low RPE, you’re unlikely to experience any meaningful interference.

(For more on this topic, see The Muscle and Strength Pyramid: Training.)

For this reason, we recommend increasing your step count rather than relying on estimated energy expenditure from cardio to support fat loss. Most smartphones can now track steps with reasonable accuracy. As mentioned earlier in the chapter, ~7000 steps per day is a good minimum goal for health and also helps regulate appetite. If you’re currently below that, aim to build up to it gradually. If you’re already hitting 7000 steps or more, each additional ~2500 steps burns roughly 100 kcal [4], which you can use in place of cutting calories if fat loss stalls (we’ll cover how to break fat loss plateaus later in this book).

However, don’t push step counts excessively. If your normal activity level is already above 7000 steps/day, we suggest capping your daily step increase at no more than 50% above your baseline for fat loss purposes (unless you’re already very active, e.g., >15,000 steps/day).

At the other end of the intensity spectrum, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) is often recommended to avoid the interference effect because it promotes bioenergetic adaptations similar to those seen with lifting. However, a 2023 meta-analysis found the same interference effect with HIIT [5]. This likely isn’t due to conflicting adaptations, but rather fatigue. HIIT is taxing, so if you opt for moderate- to high-intensity cardio instead of simply walking more, limit sessions to 1–3 per week, for 30 minutes or less.

Lastly, just as metabolic adaptation undermines the 3500 kcal = 1 lb rule, exercise energy compensation means cardio doesn’t always burn as many calories as predicted. This is yet another reason cardio should not be your primary fat loss tool.

Exercise Energy Compensation

A common assumption is that all physical activity adds calories burned in a predictable, proportional way. But this isn’t always true. At higher levels of activity, other components of daily energy expenditure often adjust downward — a phenomenon known as exercise energy compensation [6]. This is the basis of the constrained model of energy expenditure, which better explains how the body adapts to increasing activity over time.

Context matters. At low activity levels or over short durations (e.g., a marathon), increased activity raises total expenditure in a mostly additive way. But chronic high activity tends to prompt compensation [7]. The good news: compensation doesn’t erase the benefits of activity, it just means activity increases are less impactful than many expect, especially during energy deficits [8].

So, how much does this matter? On average, people burn ~30% fewer calories than predicted when they increase activity levels [62]. But there’s wide individual variation:

• Someone who is lean, dieting aggressively, and doing lots of cardio might experience up to a 50% reduction.
• Someone with obesity, eating at maintenance or a surplus, and doing moderate cardio might only see ~10% compensation.

To conclude and reiterate, we don’t recommend relying heavily on cardio for fat loss. Instead: 

• Cap your daily steps at ~50% above your baseline (unless you’re already very active, e.g., >15,000/day).

Limit cardio to 1–3 moderate- or high-intensity sessions per week, each <30 minutes, ideally separated from lifting.

If you have found this helpful, you might be pleased to know it is just a small section adapted from our Muscle and Strength Pyramid books.

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References

1. Ainsworth, B.E., et al. Compendium of physical activities: classification of energy costs of human physical activities. Med Sci Sports Exerc, 1993. 25(1): p. 71–80.
2. Huiberts, R.O., Wüst, RCI, van der Zwaard, S. Concurrent Strength and Endurance Training: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis on the Impact of Sex and Training Status. Sports Med, 2024. 54(2): p. 485–503.
3. Schumann, M., Feuerbacher, J.F., Sünkeler, M., et al. Compatibility of Concurrent Aerobic and Strength Training for Skeletal Muscle Size and Function: An Updated Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Sports Med, 2022. 52(3):601–12.
4. Nielson, R., Vehrs, P.R., Fellingham, G.W., Hager, R., Prusak, K.A. Step counts and energy expenditure as estimated by pedometry during treadmill walking at different stride frequencies. J Phys Act Health, 2011. 8(7):1004–13.
5. Sabag, A., Najafi, A., Michael, S., Esgin, T., Halaki, M., Hackett, D. The compatibility of concurrent high intensity interval training and resistance training for muscular strength and hypertrophy: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Sports Sci, 2018. 36(21): p. 2472–83.
6. Pontzer, H., Durazo-Arvizu, R., Dugas, L.R., et al. Constrained Total Energy Expenditure and Metabolic Adaptation to Physical Activity in Adult Humans. Curr Biol, 2016. 26(3): p. 410–7.
7. Thurber, C., Dugas, L.R., Ocobock, C., Carlson, B., Speakman, J.R., Pontzer, H. Extreme events reveal an alimentary limit on sustained maximal human energy expenditure. Sci Adv, 2019. 5(6): p. eaaw0341.
8. Willis, E.A., Creasy, S.A., Saint-Maurice, P.F., et al. Physical Activity and Total Daily Energy Expenditure in Older US Adults: Constrained versus Additive Models. Med Sci Sports Exerc, 2022. 54(1): p. 98–105.
9. Careau, V., Halsey, L.G., Pontzer, H., et al. Energy compensation and adiposity in humans. Curr Biol, 2021. 31(20): p. 4659–66.e2.