So the boyfriend and I will be coming into some money next month, and have been discussing buying a cardio machine. I think a treadmill would be best, he says an exercise bike. Which would be best for weightloss? Why? Whichever is the best will be paired with a weight bench, if that influences the choice.
Will appreciate any information! 
It doesn’t really matter. You exercise to improve cardiovascular fitness; you change your diet to lose weight. Unless you have a lot of time to exercise, the amount of energy you burn doing any cardio exercise is pretty immaterial as far as weight-loss is concerned.
So get whichever one you will enjoy more.
Both a treadmill and bike concentrate mainly on your legs. You may want to consider something that gives a more full-body workout like a rowing machine or Nordictrack type ski machine.
But like Friedo said - pick whatever will be the least likely to become a clothes rack.
This confuses me. I’ve long been told that the way to loose weight is to burn more calories than you consume. Are you saying that the exercise done on a cardio machine does not burn a significant number of calories?
Yes and no. There are a couple problems:
One, if you are not careful, you’ll start eating to make up for the calories you burn. You body knows when you are burning more calories and ups your appetite to balance it. This can be so subtle that you really don’t notice it, or think you are eating more, but you are. This is why some sort of food journal/calorie counting is so helpful.
Two, it is hard to burn enough to lose weight at any rate that seems worth it. You have to burn 3500 calories extra to lose a pound. Let’s say that you are currently eating 100 calories more than you need a day (I am assuming you are slowly gaining weight. Most people are, if they aren’t losing). Jogging burns roughly 100/calories a mile. So if you jog a mile a day (and don’t increase your eating), you’ll just cancel out your current slow creep. If you jog three miles a day every single day, that’s just 1600 extra calories burned, or about half a pound a week. That’s real loss, but people tend to get discouraged. Jogging more than that gets difficult, just from a time perspective.
It’s easier to cut 300 calories out of your diet than to jog three miles. It’s still hard to calorie-restrict past a certain point, however: the body reacts to starvation the same way it reacts to drowning, and will eventually overpower your will if you are restricting calories too much (cutting out 1000+ a day to get rapid weight loss)
What works the best is to do both. Exercise + calorie restriction can lead to a level of loss where you are happy and motivated by your progress, but eating enough to have a life and not drive yourself crazy with longing.
As far as the best machine, it just comes down to picking the one you will enjoy. It’s silly to worry if this one is 5% more efficient than that one. What matters is that it is still being used this time next year.
If your basal metabolic rate is 2000 calories per day, your body will need to burn about 83 calories per hour just to keep your organs alive and working. More if you’re doing light activity like sitting on a couch holding your body upright.
An hour long moderate workout on an exercise bike might burn 690 calories.
So that’s 600 calories above what your body needed just to keep itself working. Maybe 500 calories above what it would have burned if you were more or less sedentary.
So that’s a significant amount, if you really did it for an hour and didn’t eat something afterward. The latter part is the tricky part. I think it’s hard to do moderate to vigorous exercise without being hungry and consuming at least something afterward.
If you get hungry and eat a 300 calorie snack, very very easy to do, your calorie deficit from the exercise is now really small.
When I worked with a doctor to help me lose weight they had me on a 1000 calorie diet and discouraged me from doing much more than walking for that phase of her treatment. They said it was fine, but that they found their patients on as limited diets as I was on just got hungry and ate after a serious workout, whereas walking didn’t create that same hunger but burned some calories and helped with fat loss.
A really really intense hour long workout is about 500 to 700 calories. A more realistic workout of about 30 to 45 minutes is about 300 calories. How many times will you do that a week, 3 or 4? If you think you need to loose weight exercise alone will take a long long time assuming you eat exactly the same amount.
Ah, i gotcha. I appreciate all the input! We have been cutting back our calories, and we normally go for walks outside but it’s just about freezing here now! I’ve been working with my doctor and since august i’ve dropped about twenty pounds. She had me on some medication, I walked, and got on our wiifit. Now i’d just like to have something I can have in our home to use to help. I have alot of free time to dedicate to it, so it wouldn’t just become a clothes rack. I am more or less just wondering which of our picks would be the best option, but I guess it looks like either would work fine huh?
The best machine for weight loss is the one that you will continue doing. Most people get bored and give up after a short time.
But assuming you will keep up with the program, I would prefer a treadmill for a couple of reasons. One, you support your own body weight which burns more calories. And two, you can’t cheat on the treadmill. In terms of motivation, it’s better to have a machine which forces you to keep the pace. If the treadmill is set for 5mph, you are going 5mph. This is different for many other machines like the bike and elliptical in which you have to remember to move at a certain rate. It is much easier to slack off when it’s totally up to you to spin your feet at a certain pace.
But for weight loss, fun should be one of your key goals so that you don’t give up. Do you have a game console? Look into getting a game like Dance Dance Revolution. It’s a lot of fun and you don’t even realize you’re working out. You can get 2 mats and do it together.
And as people have said, it’s practically impossible to lose weight from just working out. You would need to have 2-3 hour workouts. But working out + changing diet can work really well. The working out can be a good source of diet motivation since you start to look at food differently. You see a donut as 300 calories which is 1/2 an hour of running. You become better able to make good food choices.
Pretty much, yeah, that’s what they are saying. Most aerobic exercise burns about 100 KCal/10 minutes or 300 in half an hour, give or take some sizable amount depending on your size and the intensity of your work out. And many people are then hungrier as a result and scarf down at least that much in an extra muffin or smoothie afterwards. Therefore unless it is aslo coupled with restriction on the intake side no weight loss results. Fitness yes. Better health yes. But not weight loss. Of course those are the actual goals though, fitness and health, aren’t they?
That said, assuming that you do NOT increase your intake as a result, and exercise most days, then you can lose weight. Yes, you need to pick something that you’ll actually use. Legs are the big muscles so you need to use those but indeed a rowing machine can get the rest involved also. This one is endorsed by the crossfit.com people and is probably what I’d get if I was just setting up a home gym. (But as I already have an elliptical, a stationary bike, a road bike, a treadmill, a jump rope, and a free weights set-up, I will refrain. Of those I use the weights and the elliptical the most, other than the road bike in good weather, if that helps.) One concept that crossfit exploits, as do several other organizations, is the benefit of making sure that you include enough intensity in your exercise program, whatever means you achieve it by. That keeps you burning for hours later.
So to lose weight, don’t exercise. Roger that! 
Exercise is good and all, and if you have the time you can certainly lose weight from exercise alone. The point is that it’s vastly easier to cut 500 calories from your daily diet than to do 500 calories worth of exercise every single day. Most people overestimate the calories that their exercise burns, and underestimate the calories they are eating.
That doesn’t mean exercise is worthless, of course. Making your heart and muscles stronger equals better health, even if you don’t end up burning much fat.
I’d suggest a gym membership instead.
If you can go month to month, that would be ideal. Then you wouldn’t have to plunk down several thousand on a purchase you may or may not use. Save the money and after a few months of going to the gym you’ll have a reasonably good idea of what equipment you’d want.
This is far and away the dominant factor you should consider when getting a machine. A bike doesn’t do any good tucked away in a corner.
Actually, it works fairly well as a clothes hanger, but in general you are right. The best one is the one you will use - everything beyond that is noise.
Thanks for the awesome input! I think this has basically settled the argument, we’re getting a collapsible treadmill. I love to walk and I’m far more likely to use it than a bike that I think looks silly, and he doesn’t care either way. So yay! Thanks everyone! Like I said, we’ve already reduced our daily calorie intake, the whole point of us getting a machine is cause it’s getting into freezing temperatures out and I don’t want to walk when an icicle is hanging off my nose! I appreciate everyone’s advice
If you’re getting collapsible, make sure it’s a breeze for one person to set up and put away, and put it in a location where you don’t have to move three pieces of furniture every time you want to use it.
Why, yes, I do have a folding treadmill. Why do you ask? 
I never really got use out of my stationary bike, and eventually gave it to someone who may or may not be hanging clothes on it, but I’ve been very happy with a Total Gym (the one hawked by Chuck Norris and Christie Brinkley). It’s stupidly expensive (more than $1200 new), so I bought a used one from someone off of craigslist for $450. Why would you care, since its only real “cardio” exercise is (many) inclined squats?
Well, for me, something I can unfold in 90 seconds in my living room, where I can listen to the TV while exercising is something I can actually keep up with. There’s some controversy regarding weight loss through building muscle mass, but I’ve lost 15 pounds over the last year without really focusing on weight loss. I was just trying to do something on weekdays when I couldn’t make the time for a bicycle ride, but I’ve lost enough weight that various people have commented that I seem to be losing weight. Plus my guns are looking awesome.
I think that, even with just two five minute sets of squats, I’m getting a benefit because I can get to it almost every day.
Will do! In our living room we have a huge closet that I refer to as the ‘third bedroom’, so anything we consider will have to be able to roll in and out of that! It’s at the perfect angle to run/walk and still watch tv.
Exactly!