Do I really have to do cardio lose weight?

[Anonymous]

I have about 30 lbs to lose. I've been eating much better over the past few weeks and have slowly added in 3 days of Bodypump (strength training that gets the heart rate up), 2 days of yoga in between and at least 10,000 steps everyday.
I hate cardio...with a passion. I'd rather give birth than take an hourlong cardio class.
Is what I'm doing enough? I'm losing weight at a healthy rate, but everyone keeps telling me that I should add cardio sessions to the mix. I don't want to.

[Anonymous]

Cardio is important for your heart and overall health, as well as weightloss. There has to be something you can do that you don't mind - swimming, dance, jogging intervals, biking, jumprope, etc..

[Anonymous]

Also, music you enjoy really helps with cardio.

[Anonymous]

Waking is a form of cardio. Maybe try high intensity interval training, it also gets things pumping but has a lot of plyometrics to mix things up and you have rest intervals. I feel the same way and have a similar fitness routine and those classes are very effective. You burn a lot of calories.

[Anonymous]

Also start with just a few minutes a day, then increase. Don't start off with an hour, build up your endurance.

[Anonymous]

I don't love cardio but I do it because of my HEART! Im loading weight but my heart health is way more important. Yes absolutely do cardio. Find one you don't hate. I started with dancing and managed to lose 30 lbs in 4 months from that alone.

[Anonymous]

Body pump is cardio.

Do what you enjoy but I would swap body pump for a heavy lifting workout twice per week to get more bang for your buck in terms of time.

[Anonymous]

No. You don't need to do cardio to lose weight. If your primary goal is to lose weight, dieting is by far the most important, followed by strength training and/or high intensity interval training. Cardio is a distant third.

To be clear, there are plenty of other excellent reasons to do cardio, such as heart health and general energy level. But people tend to massively overstate its importance for weight loss.

[Anonymous]

On the contrary. I hate cardio, too, as it ramps up hunger and makes dieting miserable. In an ideal world, bed rest and zero carb

[Anonymous]

Hate it too. It makes me hungry!! I do heavy lifting most of the time but do cardio once a week for my heart. I tend to do interval training. It is less boring than running and gets better results.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. You don't need to do cardio to lose weight. If your primary goal is to lose weight, dieting is by far the most important, followed by strength training and/or high intensity interval training. Cardio is a distant third.

To be clear, there are plenty of other excellent reasons to do cardio, such as heart health and general energy level. But people tend to massively overstate its importance for weight loss.

+1!

I do like it as a little warm up before a lifting workout--just to loosen up. I'll do 20 minutes of elliptical or light jogging before lifting. Diet is really the most important factor. But strength training is wonderful and will give you a great shape. Strictly cardio often leads to a lot of women being "skinny fat" and that's not attractive, IMO.

[Anonymous]

Keep doing those 10,000 steps. Over time, maybe walk a little faster. Activity is good -- for so many reasons.

[Anonymous]

Isn't HIIT cardio & strength combined? I thought just about anything that raises your heart rate (ie. get breathless) is cardio.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn't HIIT cardio & strength combined? I thought just about anything that raises your heart rate (ie. get breathless) is cardio.

I think "cardio" is generally a shorthand for "aerobic exercise," which is a sustained exercise that raises your heart rate without inducing an anaerobic state. HIIT is short bursts of anaerobic exercise alternated with periods of less intense exercise. So technically, HIIT isn't cardio.

You're correct that HIIT probably obtains most of the same benefits of cardio. The traditional thinking was that increases in heart rate needed to be consistent and sustained for 20 minutes to produce cardio benefits. The increasing weight of the evidence is that repeatedly spiking your heart rate produces very similar benefits, so you can probably get the major benefits of cardio without actually doing cardo by performing strength training as HIIT.

But I think its fair to say HIIT has weight loss benefits that cardio alone does not:

- It helps increase muscle mass (or avoid loss of muscle mass during extreme dieting), which is very important for avoiding rebounding weight gain after concluding a diet;
- It burns more calories per time spent than cardio, so its somewhat more efficient;
- Some studies suggest that the trailing effect on your metabolism is longer for HIIT than cardio; e.g. you stop burning "extra" calories shortly after stepping off a cardio machine but continue burning extra calories the remainder of the day with HIIT.

There's also the intangible benefit, which is that some people who can't get into cardio can get into and sustain HIIT; see, e.g. the millions of people who couldn't get themselves into the gym until they became CrossFit freaks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. You don't need to do cardio to lose weight. If your primary goal is to lose weight, dieting is by far the most important, followed by strength training and/or high intensity interval training. Cardio is a distant third.

To be clear, there are plenty of other excellent reasons to do cardio, such as heart health and general energy level. But people tend to massively overstate its importance for weight loss.

You are 100% wrong. The lose fat, and I assume she wants to lose fat, you have to burn it, the only way to burn fat (reduce the size of the fat cells) is to do via cardio. Limiting food (calories) will reduce lean body mass which is what you want not to get rid of.

If a person is working out properly and at a high enough level to burn fat they will actually increase their caloric intake due to the need to fuel their body. resistance weight training is a key component as well as a diet.

there is no quick fix, this isn't a reality tv show, for the OP to drop the 30 lbs and do it properly so they look like normal and not a bag of bones with skin hanging off them it should take about a year.