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Best/ Worst Cardio for Fat Loss
Fitness | October 28, 2015
I love fitness. Because I eat, sleep, and breathe it, I also follow a lot of popular fitness sites and magazines to keep up with the latest trends and ideas out there. I firmly believe that you should never stop learning. Education is a big part of what gives my life that forward motion that’s so invigorating and motivating.
Lately, I’ve been seeing the same headline pop up over and over again. It’s always some kind of variation of: Cardio Makes You Fat! Why You Should Dump Your Cardio Routine! If You Want to Lose Weight Get Off the Treadmill!…and so forth.
So, what’s the deal? Does cardio really make you fat?
In brief, of course not. Cardiovascular exercise just means that you’re doing some kind of activity that raises your heart rate. When we raise our heart rates by using muscle groups to move our bodies, our body has to work harder to rush more oxygen to the working muscles, heart, and lungs. This burns more calories than if you’re sitting or lying around. When you burn more calories, you lose weight, right?
Well, that all depends on how many calories are going into your body and how many calories your body needs.
Firstly, because exercise feels so difficult and eating feels so easy, many people overestimate how many calories they burn and underestimate how many calories they consume.
Secondly, if cardio is the only form of exercise you do, you won’t have much muscle mass. It’s widely known that the more muscle mass you have, the more calories your body will burn all day long, even while you’re resting.
Finally, if you know anything about me at all it’s that I subscribe to the high intensity, short workout methodology and despite how people have seen amazing results from doing these kinds of workouts, still lots and lots of people regularly engage in long, slow, moderate intensity cardio training, like jogging or bobbing along on an elliptical machine at the gym, for fat loss. And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that… endurance is a very important facet of fitness and one we should all focus on from time to time. However, slow steady cardio burns less calories and fat than if you work at a more intense pace for shorter amounts of time. And again, because long form cardio takes so long, many people overestimate how many calories they’re burning. You can burn the same if not more calories doing a max effort workout with me for 20 minutes than pacing along on a treadmill for an hour.
So, if you don’t regularly work on gaining muscle, and you eat more calories than you burn, and you go to the gym 3 times a week and slog it out on a machine for an hour at a slow steady pace, chances are that you’re not going to lose weight or improve your fitness level and you might even gain weight. Hence where this “cardio makes you fat” topic people are talking about.
Bottom line, cardio is great! You should do it fast and slow, it’s all worth your time but so is flexibility and strength training! BUT being fit and healthy is so much more than a little cardio at the gym every now and then. And that sounds really boring to me anyway! Cardio definitely doesn’t make you fat. But you should never neglect to eat a proper diet for your body, work on strength, and move in more than one way.
If you feel like you’re at a weight loss plateau and you only do machine cardio, try some of my strength training workouts and interval cardio. Once you start strength and flexibility training, I promise you’ll see a difference really quickly in how you look and feel!
Do you have any inspirational stories about how strength and high intensity training changed your life and body, leave comments below and help inspire the community 🙂
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Private Member |
sheffield, united kingdom
It is impossible for me to stay more than 5 minutes in any cardio machine in the gym. With your workouts I never get bored and they make my body stronger! But I actually swim, and I can also variate my workouts =)
Private Member |
seattle, washington
There lots of people out there thinking what they did in the past will work now.The probably with that is the body adapts pretty quickly to this sort of thing.You make you workout different enough to prevent this from happening.
Private Member |
Love how phones correct everything… It was problem not probably…
Private Member |
bella vista, ar, us
Zuzka thanks for your straight up…fact based writing! I love it! You are my absolute fitness hero!! Never….never have I accomplished more physically with my body and mind than I have with your program and inspiration! I’m 47 and it feels like I’ve tried every fitness program know to man/woman! I absolutely love your style of exercise, it fits me and for the first time I am approaching my diet the healthy way…no over the counter diet pills. I take my measurements on and off (lose them most of the time) and since starting your program in March of 2015, I’ve lost 3.50 inches total as of today’s measurements and mainly in my problem areas, hips and thighs! Thank you for inspiring me and providing us Warriors with a platform to better ourselves physically and mentally!
Private Member |
caseyville, illinois
I feel exactly the same! Same age also
Private Member |
toluca, state of mexico, mexico
Hi dear Zuzka!
I´ve always admired well trained and feeded bodies hahaha and have always done some phisical activity. I started with Karate Do when I was 4 because my father was the sensei so after being following a discipline like that, I understood the importance of being respectful and take care of our body. Of course the plus you obtain is a beautiful and healthy body.
I used to feel inspired with great examples like Bruce Lee, of course his body was amazing!! Then I started to notice bodies like Jean Claude Van Dame and became a fan of Rocky Balboa (my favourite is the IV movie) my inspirations were always men because women used to look whether too bulky or too thin; so from the first time I saw you training I was like wooow speachless because the image of your body is my concept of a responsible woman. Really Zuzka, when I´m not inspired or feel that it doensn´t worth it, i see you doing any workout and my battery to workout and follow your schedule comes back immediately!!
Keep on doing what you do because your workouts are fun and hard sometimes!! I love them and I can say I couldn´t live without the ever 😀
Love, Krista
Private Member |
toluca, state of mexico, mexico
Ah, and about the article you are absolutely right!! I´ve done many types of exercise, but yours are the best way to maintain my body fit and looking good 🙂
I´ve done velocism, long distance running, insanity, trx, boot camp … and many different things that are nice and they really work I know, but Zuzka, Im in love with your workouts because they make me feel like: a beautiful, strong and sexy woman. Period.
And you are unique!!
Private Member |
I love variety in my workouts! The number one reason why I’ve never stuck with anything for a long time is the lack of variety! That’s why I stick with working out with you lady!!
Private Member |
williasmport, pennsylvania, united states
Last time I traveled I was doing one of your workouts while a guy was watching TV in the treadmill. After a quick warm up the workout probably took me 25 min, a did a bit of yoga and handstand practice after, got some water and was done for the night. While leaving the fitness room the guy in the treadmill says “quitting so soon?” grrrrrrr!!!! I was about to recite everything you say in this article but may be not as kindly! hahahhaa
The reaon why I have kept consistent is because you workouts make it doable! and we all know consistency is key to getting and staying fit. i am still struggling with the healthy diet part but I am finally at a phase where working out and working on flexibility is as part of my daily routine as having some coffee in the morning. I owe you a lot Z! and this community you have created is super positive and encouraging! they are also a reason to keep pushing forward ;P