Extreme Cardio for Weight Loss

Posted on April 20, 2014 by john in Fitness tips

You do not have to do cardio to lose weight at all. None. Surprising, is not it? We have been told many times that you have to cardio, aerobics, cardio and the fat burning zone to burn fat. But the truth ? You have to control your diet. How to burn calories to lose weight is less important.

The latest research from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, has shown that a cardio program 8 weeks ( 3 sessions per week for 40 minutes per session ) produced no fat loss! On the other hand, the interval training group in the same study lost several kilos.

Traditional cardio is a waste of time. Inefficient and ineffective, possibly. You are much better to focus on proper nutrition fat loss and strength and interval exercises.

And you certainly do not have to do extreme amounts of cardio. However, some people end up having their activities fat loss to extremes. Making healthy, inefficient and excessive election.

For example, a reader wrote to me about 7 hours of cardio per week did. He wondered why she was not losing fat. That is an extreme amount of slow and steady cardio. Something that would never advise a fat loss program. And she still wanted to do more!

I told him no way. If 7 hours per week does’t work for you, why else ? With that mentality, you end up spending every non-working waking minute doing cardio. What kind of life is that?

Another reader wrote about the dangers of too low calorie diet…

” I’m on the road to weight loss again. Realized that I was not eating enough calories (1000 kcal / day). Filled with vegetables is good ( and I love ), but have no calories. Eating nuts / almonds helped me get there. Comer 1500 + is where I have to be to lose weight and maintain my energy. was I dropped about 3 pounds this week. ”
In most people, there will be the need to do more, eat less, or even more obsessed with food and exercise when you are trying to reach a fitness or fat loss goal.

But taking eating and working out the ends is often counterproductive in the long run and, frankly unhealthy.

And most unfortunate is that the reader who wrote me about your 7 hours of aerobic training ineffective, was skeptical of the strength and interval training, because not believed to contain enough cardio.

But really, how much could be enough for this woman ? 7 hours was not getting results. What do you want ? 10 hours ?

We must understand that cardio is not the alpha and omega of the fat loss programs. There are many ways to burn fat and calories, not just by spending 60 minutes on an elliptical machine.

All you need are 3 training sessions per week of 45 minutes per session. Do 20 minutes of training in total body strength followed by 20 minutes of interval training. Then spend the rest of your week stay active through fun activities and focus on natural whole foods nutrition for fat loss. No more extreme cardio !