The Incredible Cardio Myth: Why Cardio Is Possibly The Most Overrated Way To Lose Fat
Website design By BotEap.comBefore I get hate mail or rants and praise from people calling me an idiot, let me clarify. Cardio works to lose fat. That’s obvious. Cardio is great for general health, heart health, and just getting off your butt. However, when it comes to fast fat loss, especially for busy moms and dads, cardio is way, way overrated. Is it sacrilege for a personal trainer to say that cardio is overrated or doesn’t work?
Website design By BotEap.comI do not think. In my personal opinion, it’s the lazy and uninformed personal trainers, nutritionists, medical professionals, and any other health-related professionals who should be ashamed and feel stupid for not getting the job done and actually helping the people who come to them looking for of help. . Before I burn any more bridges, let me go over some of the reasons cardio for fat loss is the most overrated type of exercise known to man (followed closely by crunches).
Website design By BotEap.com1. Traditional cardio workouts for weight loss are a huge waste of time.
Website design By BotEap.comWhen you think of cardio for weight loss, how long do you think you need to do it? Most people I meet tend to think you have to do it for a minimum of 30 minutes and some even go so far as to say you have to do it for 60-90 minutes A DAY to get any kind of weight loss benefit. Do you really have 60 minutes of free time to spend on ineffective cardio training?
Website design By BotEap.com2. Adaptability.
Website design By BotEap.comYour body is very intelligent and adapts to any form of exercise you give it. That’s one of the reasons you should switch up your workout every few weeks, but this is especially true when it comes to cardio for weight loss. Let me give you some numbers to consider. Let’s say you traditionally do cardio for about 45 minutes 3-6 days a week and that burns about 400 calories. Sounds good, right? But what you don’t realize is that every time you do that workout, your body is adapting to that workout, which means you burn fewer and fewer calories each time you do it.
Website design By BotEap.comSo after a few weeks, instead of burning 400 calories, you’re burning 380. You can take that further and say that in a few months you’re only burning about 300 calories. But how do you fix that problem? The goal is to burn more calories, not fewer, right? To fix this, you would have to do your cardio for a longer period of time or work harder in those 45 minutes. Sounds good. You can do it…but remember, you’re working harder and taking longer to convert the same number of calories you burned a few months ago, when you weren’t working as hard. Call me crazy, but I don’t think that’s the goal you’re looking for.
Website design By BotEap.com3. The ‘fat burning zone’ does not exist.
Website design By BotEap.comThis is one of my favorite cardio for weight loss myths because it’s a pretty biased way of looking at the science. Yes, your body burns a higher PERCENTAGE of fat at a certain heart rate or work zone, but who cares. When I’m sitting on my butt in front of the TV, my body is burning a higher percentage of body fat than when I’m working hard doing a fat-burning exercise, but that doesn’t mean I’m burning more fat. The keyword is ‘percentage’.
Website design By BotEap.comDo you want to burn a higher percentage of fat, or just more fat? If you’re like most people, all you want is to burn more fat, and you couldn’t care less what the percentage of fat calories is compared to non-fat calories. To burn more fat, you need to stop doing so much low to moderate intensity cardio and start doing more resistance training and interval training. Resistance training shouldn’t take a lot of time and should involve a lot of full-body workouts and full-body exercises. It should take you less than 20 minutes (hopefully around 10) so you don’t have any excuses not to do it.
Website design By BotEap.comYou shouldn’t focus on useless exercises like tricep kickbacks, chest flyes, leg extensions, bicep curls, etc. and you should focus on exercises that give you the most fat-burning bang for your buck. So stop putting all your faith in the treadmill, elliptical trainer, stationary bike and stair climber and stop going straight to the cardio area at the gym as soon as you walk in the door because that’s not the best way to lose weight. fat. There are much better ways than traditional cardio to lose weight that will burn fat much faster and make you feel better and healthier in much less time than most cardio junkies spend warming up.