Reply to Do I really have to do cardio lose weight?

Forum Index » Sports General Discussion

Reply to "Do I really have to do cardio lose weight?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=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.[/quote]

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.  [/quote]

No, I'm really not. There is a wealth of recent research into these questions, and I think it amply supports this position.

First, despite the various fad diets, hate on carbs, etc., weight loss and gain is almost solely a function of caloric deficit or excess. By far the easiest way to create a caloric deficit is to diet. It is much easier to cut out an indulgent dessert, for example, than to have several extra exercise sessions. And that's assuming the extra exercise sessions don't cause you to eat more to compensate, when studies routinely show that they do.

Second, your sentence: "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" is wrong in almost every single particular. "Burning fat" is a borderline nonsensical concept that has no foundation in physiology. Your body does convert fat into energy, but it does this regardless of the reason you have a caloric deficit. In fact, cardio is one of the least effective ways to "burn fat," because fat, though it has more calories per gram, takes more time and energy to digest. When you are resting, you are converting a combination of the various macro-nutrients (protein, carbs, fat) into energy. When you elevate your heart rate, your body skews towards digesting the most digestible form of energy - carbohydrates. That means a lower percentage of the calories your body "burns" are fat than when you are not exercising. Finally, the notion that "the only way" to burn fat is cardio is entirely wrong. The vast majority of calories you burn during the day, including fat calories, you burn just from being awake. Taking a breath burns calories. Digesting food burns calories. Using your brain burns calories. And again, these calories come from a combination of the various micronutrients, and are actually more likely to come from fat sources when you are resting. (It is of course true that you will burn more calories if you are doing cardio then if you spend the same time sitting in front of a computer. But 30 minutes at moderate exertion on the elliptical might increase your net caloric deficit by 5% for that day. Beneficial, yes. But less than the effect of watching what you eat.)

Third, you are correct that limiting food intake can reduce muscle. That's problematic for weight loss, because muscle helps keep weight off (because it takes a lot of calories to sustain muscle, helping to keep your caloric balance in check). But limiting food intake also reduces fat stores. The trick here is figuring out how to make sure more of your weight loss comes from reduced fat than reduced muscle, and the science on this is very clear: weight training and HIIT help preserve or increase muscle mass. Cardio does not, and in fact can make it more difficult to retain muscle mass. That means if your primary goal is weight loss, you want to run a caloric deficit through dieting and work to minimize muscle loss through strength training and HIIT.

Fourth, I'm not sure I understand your sentence: "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." I think maybe you meant to say increase their "caloric needs" or "caloric deficit?" Again, you don't need a minimum intensity level to burn fat. That's actually backwards. The more you spike your intensity level, the more your body will attempt to digest carbohydrates instead of fat. In any case, cardio isn't the best way to spike an increase in caloric need. Your metabolism does peak for a short period after engaging in cardio exercise. Some studies say it stays elevated for 30-90 minutes. But it peaks for even longer after strength training or HIIT, with some studies showing an elevated metabolism for a day or more. If you have limited time to exercise, you will get a significantly larger weight loss benefit from strength training than cardio.

Again, I'm not anti cardio. I just think dieting and weight training/HIIT are both significantly more important for weight loss.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics