Unsurprisingly, fitness is always more complicated than it seems.
You are certainly correct that runners don’t burn (much) more calories than a couch potato. But weightlifters do, vs a couch potato of the same weight.
The thing about cardio is that the calories go directly into effort. The calories burned are roughly proportional to the effort (distance). But the moment you stop, the calories stop getting burned.
If you are doing weightlifting, the calories spent at the time to lift a heavy object are minimal. But it instructs your body to add muscle to better handle all the heavy lifting you do. Once you have that muscle, you burn a ton of calories 24 hours per day just keeping it alive. It becomes part of your base metabolic rate. It burns nearly the same calories whether you’re at the gym, or sitting on the couch. And it will continue to burn those calories until your body decides you no longer need that extra muscle mass and it atrophies.
Unsurprisingly, fitness is always more complicated than it seems.
You are certainly correct that runners don’t burn (much) more calories than a couch potato. But weightlifters do, vs a couch potato of the same weight.
The thing about cardio is that the calories go directly into effort. The calories burned are roughly proportional to the effort (distance). But the moment you stop, the calories stop getting burned.
If you are doing weightlifting, the calories spent at the time to lift a heavy object are minimal. But it instructs your body to add muscle to better handle all the heavy lifting you do. Once you have that muscle, you burn a ton of calories 24 hours per day just keeping it alive. It becomes part of your base metabolic rate. It burns nearly the same calories whether you’re at the gym, or sitting on the couch. And it will continue to burn those calories until your body decides you no longer need that extra muscle mass and it atrophies.