I’m oooooooold. Because I’m old I still hold onto a lot of old “myths”. One of those myths is that anaerobic exercises put your body into a fat burning mode that lasts for hours after the lifting session ends. Then there I was goofing around on YouTube and found a guy that says that’s B.S. (Sorry, I didn’t think to copy the link.) want to hate the guy but am worried he may be right. Please teach this old dog a new trick. Or better still, tell me Mr YouTube is full of shit.

From what I've gathered your body will consume more than BMR of calories during recovery, but it's a negligible amount and not enough to get excited about.

I think in general our bodies work in longer windows than we like to quantify.

Just because you did a little bit of exercise it's not going to shift it's entire metabolic system drastically, you will use up your glycogen and then it will restore it by whatever means is easiest for it.

There's a reason that fasting, or fasted exercise feels like it's burning fat. Your body will have to mobilize it out of long term storage if you are low on calories.

Thinking in minutes or hours is probably a fool's errand when it comes to nutrition, you need to think in weeks and months. Sure you can do some carb timing here and there, but in the long run does it really matter much? Whatever goal you have is best met by long term consistency and gradual changes as needed.

Ketosis is the fat burning mode for our bodies, and you can be in super ketosis, or just mild depending on your diet. Early humans had that system in place because it was literally either feast or famine most of the time, you gorged when there was food, and you did your best o find food when there wasn't and lived off your stored fat. As a result they likely were able to jump in and out of it much more often and more rapidly.

People that have gotten heavily into ketosis and actually monitored it have made note that afterwards they can get back in much faster, your body has to kind of refine that skill, and because of our modern diets it doesn't get to practice it much.

This is correct, you burn more but not a substantial amount.  Your body requires a certain amount of protein to retain your lean mass and keep it healthy that would be part of your basal metabolic rate.  When you lift weights(getting past much of the early lifting that is mostly neurological enhancements) to the part you are tearing down muscle that needs to be repaired then you are burning additional protein calories for repair.

As the muscle grows you require more protein for maintenance, so your BMR has increased, and if you continue to break down tissue, your calorie requirements go up as you require more and more protein for repair and maintenance

BUT these are not large amounts.  Maintenance is typically 0.8-1 gm protein per 1 lb of LEAN body mass(this is muscle, bone, connectivity tissue, and organs). Maintenance and repair is typically 1-1.2 gm protein per lb of lean tissue(these are averages, and both the lows and higher but not significantly for a population)

So yes, it is more, but you can see it’s not statistically  significant, much the same way that most aerobic exercise  does not statistically  burn additional calories because people forget to subtract their BMR calories burned at rest from the total number of calories burned during the exercise

So the bottom line is, assuming my diet is squared away, I am burning a few extra calories by lifting but if I really want to reduce body fat I need to incorporate cardio.  (Yeah, yeah, yeah.....I know I should do that anyway but I hate cardio. )

You'd have to run around 5 miles a day, 7 days a week to burn off a pound of fat.

No matter what type of exercise you are doing, if you want to loose weight you're diet is the most important.

Cardio is good for health, but again, the amount of calories burned are not significant. Your body burns calories at rest, this is your basal metabolic rate.  

Let’s say an average 200 lb man has a basal metabolic rate of 2000 calories, that’s about 50 calories per half hour.  A moderate run burns about 250 calories per 30 minutes.  So you’ve only burned 200 calories.  A lb of fat is 3500 calories

So cardio is good for overall health.  Weight training is great for physical health(strong bones, muscles and joints)

But being fit is done in the kitchen.  A person with a solid diet will be leaner than a person that runs and weight trains but eats like shit

No, if you want to burn off fat you need to eat kind of cleanish and in a calorie deficit for an extended period of time.

You can lose fat without doing a bit of exercise, your weight is controlled by your diet.

Just to hammer the point home

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+/- a 1 hour run at 5mph

Which is why you can't outrun a shitty diet.

Unless you're me at 18 then you can eat all you want.  

I fear I haven't phrased my questions clearly.  "Six pack abs are built in the kitchen, not in the gym."  Yep, I'm very VERY aware of that phenomenon.  A proper diet is the only way to drop body fat, got it.  But if you add exercise to a proper diet you can do it FASTER.  That's where I'm coming from.  Does the old cliché about turbo charging your metabolism (Or whatever process it's called) with anaerobic exercises still hold water?

It does, but not enough to really matter.

It's science that has been bro'd out of proportion.

That is exactly my concern.  Thanks!

It's pretty common sense: If you enter into a glycogen deficit by a significant enough amount, then eat foods that either take enough time to digest, the body will continue converting as much fat as possible into glycogen.

For most people that are in OK shape, given a decent dinner and enough sleep, the next morning it will take at least 60 minutes or vigorous activity to deplete the glycogen in your muscles and a fair amount stored in your liver (the deficit I was talking about). The more in shape you are, the more glycogen is stored in your body, so the more time/intensity it will take you to get to that point.

Keep in mind I'm not talking about bonking, where the body is literally almost completely exhausted of all glycogen (which, if anyone has ever really bonked to the literal meaning, is a very, very unpleasant experience).

After you've created the deficit, if throughout the day you're eating foods that take a long time to convert to glycogen, then yes, the body will also be simultaneously converting fat to replenish the stores. If, however, you go and drink twelve Big Gulps right after working out, you're body can more easily convert all those sugars into glycogen with almost no effort, so it does. No ongoing fat burn for you.

It's all about exercising, then eating right.