With spring break quickly approaching, a lot of us are trying to shed some of those extra pounds, fast. What better way to do that than pump up your cardio routine right? Wrong. 

If you want to lose weight and keep it off permanently, there truly is only one way to do it, strength training. Strength training increases your metabolism so you can burn more calories 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And that, my friends, is the key to successful, permanent weight loss.

I know a lot of girls who steer clear of the weight room because either: 

a.) They don’t want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, 

b.) They don’t feel comfortable in the weight room, 

c.) They don’t know how to use the equipment. 

For all of these reasons, I offer solutions. 

First of all, it is physically impossible for a woman to look like the terminator unless she is on some serious human growth hormones (A.K.A., steroids.) Second, I know the weight room can be a little intimidating for girls and that’s totally understandable. Girls in the gym have a lot of obstacles to overcome. You don’t want people to look at you like you don’t know what you’re doing and you also don’t want the gym pedophile to stare you up and down. If this is your dilemma, you should either go to Walmart and buy your own set of weights, or grow some thick skin and learn to ignore it (I recommend the latter because all that equipment can really add up.) Finally, for those of you who simply just don’t know what you’re doing, that’s why I’m here.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that cardio won’t help you lose weight. What I am saying however, is that cardio can only offer you weight loss benefits in the short run, while strength training will build up your metabolism permanently. According to fitness expert Jim Karnas, a contributing writer for Yahoo Health, cardiovascular exercise will result in weight loss, but it will come at a cost as 60 percent of the weight loss will be fat, which is good; however, the remaining 40 percent will come from muscle, which is really, really bad.

Karnas says you never want to lose lean muscle tissue. One pound of muscle burns six calories per pound per day, while one pound of fat burns two calories per pound per day. That four-calorie difference may not sound like much, but for most people, that’s the difference between living lean and being overweight. 

After 20 to 30 minutes, most classic, steady state cardiovascular exercise begins to chew up your precious, calorie-burning muscle. The moment this happens, you are in a metabolic free fall. However, there is one thing cardio doesn’t kill—your appetite. Go out for a run, burn a few calories, then come back and eat up to twice as many calories. Translation: Weight (and fat) gain. Doesn’t sound like a solution to me.

Additionally, performing excess cardio can lead to: a slower metabolism, put extra stress on the adrenal glands, which can lead to fatigue, anxiety, depression, insomnia, frequent illness, decreased memory/concentration and the inability to lose weight, increase the hormone cortisol, a major culprit of belly fat and finally, it can create injury.

As a runner, I know this is a lot to take in. And while I still do believe that cardio is an important part of your exercise routine that shouldn’t be neglected, I feel the same about strength training. If you’re simply doing one, and not the other, you will never get the results you’re looking for.