Best way to lose fat and build leaner and stronger muscle

[Mauthos]

Simple topic which I am hoping gets a good discussion going, but what do you think is the best way to burn fat and gain stronger muscle (not too concerned with bigger or leaner).

I have recently returned to the gym after a 4 year break and had only kept my fitness up during that time with my normal martial arts classes and pretty much daily body weight exercises. After going through a particularly rough year and gaining weight I have since lost 2.5 stone (roughly 18kgs), managed to get off of insulin and bulked mainly my upper body quite significantly.

However, the weight loss has slowed down and as I still want to lose a further 10kgs I decided it was time to go back to the gym.

So, I have always heard and been told that cardio workouts are the best for losing weight, but also there is the chain of thought that dictates strength training (weight lifting etc) is also the best for burning fat due to the state of contraction you put your muscles into which aids in burning more calories. Now, I actually do both, weight training 4 -5 times per week with 2 sessions of body combat for the cardio plus my 3 sessions of martial arts training.

I have seen a lot of improvement in my fitness, flexibility and strength but would like other people's opinions/advice as to what they think the best way would be for someone like myself to lose the additional weight, whilst keeping strong musculature.

So, what would your advice be, cardio only, strength training only, or a mixture of both?

Oh, and I know nutrition and diet is just as important, but as I am a diabetic, my diet is tightly controlled, but feel free to discuss it here.

Thanks

 

[K-man]

I would have thought the fitness regime you have described would be doing a lot of good. The only comment I would make is with the weights where I would keep the weight on the low side and work on high reps.

WRT diet and weight loss ... there are certain types of exercise where it is said that metabolism is elevated for some hours after the exercise is finished ( http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/health/nutrition/19best.html?_r=0 ), but diabetic or not, the hard truth for many of us is ... excess calories are stored as fat and unfortunately that gets worse as you get older.
:asian:

 

[Takai]

It sounds like you may have plateaued. That is pretty normal. You might try shaking out your workout regime by changing exercises. Try bicycling instead of running to use an example. The body can get used to a routine when you change it up the body has to adapt.

Sadly, K-man is correct...it gets harder as you get older.

 

[granfire]

http://www.amazon.com/The-Action-Hero-Body-Hollywoods/dp/1579549101

I found this book pretty interesting.
A lot of stuff in there, maybe not everything applicable, but most is doable (minus his supplement ideas, maybe)

found it on a bargain table.

 

[Mauthos]

Thanks for the comments guys. I felt that I had plateaued which was the main reason why I returned to the gym and although only back for 1 week so far I am feeling much better regarding fitness levels. I maintain a minimum of a 500 calorie deficit per day to ensure I don't put fat back on and I have added the weights and body combat to try and shock my body as I was definitely finding the body weight exercises too easy after doing them pretty much every day for 18 months.

Will add in a swimming session soon and will switch up my weight training routine every few weeks so that my body never truly gets used to it all. Hopefully I will return to my fighting weight as it were and keep getting stronger.

Thanks again