Losing weight and cardio

I finally joined my local YMCA and want to get into a cardio routine. I am already doing the Couch to 5K running program and want to do other cardio for weight loss. Do I necessarily have to follow a cardio routine for my off days or will it matter if I am just using any equipment for the cardio(elliptical, bike, arc)? or do I have to stick with an equipment routine? I don’t think i should start the weights yet as I still have a bit of weight loss to go. Do I have this all wrong? lol I know I’m probably making this more difficult but I really want to get the most out of the gym for weight loss.

Actually, you want to be lifting weights. Essentially, muscle burns fat. If you build more muscle then burning fat is easier for your body.

I’d do your couch to 5K program and supplement with weight training 3 days per week.

Its good to “mix it up” a bit, try weights on your non running days, or try other exercises such as rowing, cycling, swimming.

Depending on your base fitness level i wouldn’t rush into doing to much at once you may find your fatigued for your cTo5K running days.

Supplement cardio with weight training. Picture the overweight person in the gym doing ab exercises, not a good sight….. Get in shape with a HIT weight lifting program kettlebells or tabata. Start with cardio on your off days, cycling, swimming or even boxing. But to jump right in and trying to shape your body with cardio is fail.

What is your priority? If it’s just the number on the scale, then go ahead and just do cardio. If it’s a desire to look better naked, then add weights. (There’s NO reason to put off weights because you think you’re too far from your goal.) If it’s overall health, then do whatever you enjoy, but know that weights+cardio=most bang for your buck.
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Congrats on taking the steps you’ve already taken, and enjoy the journey. :)

Thanks all, this is great!! Well I have no idea, again I’m clueless. Witeowl you had it right, I was thinking I was a bit too far off to even start weight training, after all, gotta lose the weight before you see any definition underneath it all :-) My priority is to lose weight in theory but, it’s not just a number: I would love to wear my bikini again someday and be fit! However, thanks to a C-section that might not even be possible without an abdominoplasty :-)

How much cardio do think is beneficial? tonight I did my 25 minutes running/ walking and then 10 minutes each on the bicycle and elliptical

I think the misconception is about “loosing weight” whereas it should be about “loosing body fat”.

One pound of muscle burns 35 to 50 extra kCals/day. So, increasing your muscle mass, as JDwoods puts it, helps you in getting slimmer as well. So the goal, in my opinion, should not be merely to loose weight but to change the mass/fat ratio of your body.

Additionally, Cardio burns the precious muscles that you have unless you supplement your workouts with weight lifting.

Hope this helps,

Yes it helps thanks Ushox!! I know what you mean, I loosely say I want to lose the weight but I really don’t care what the scale says (or I won’t care) as long as I lose THE fat :-) This thread has been enlightening, glad I questioned it!

How many pounds of muscle is she supposed to put on to help burn those calories?

You burn more calories with a good cardio work out… period.
However, you need to supplement with a strength training program.

Do you see fat weight lifters or fat marathon runners?

> Do you see fat weight lifters or fat marathon runners?

Oh come on! :). Most of us, I’d assume, are not high athletes here… In my experience, accelerating the metabolism has a better effect in the long run (no pun intended).

Without even getting into Cardio’s decreasing the testosterone level, consuming the muscle etc. in my opinion, priority should be in increasing the metabolism by increasing the muscle mass and eating small and regularly rather than just hitting the treadmill. So I’d complement the weight training with cardio :) not the other way around.

> Do you see fat weight lifters or fat marathon runners?

Existential question, though: Are they slim because they’re running a marathon? Or they can run a marathon because they’re slim? :)

@ Shambo fat cardio people, who think lazy 20 min cardio work outs are good because it says they burn 500 calories….
You rarely see fat weight lifters, unless they are power lifters (few)…

@ Ushox good points

http://health.msn.com/fitness/articlepage.aspx?…

http://munfitnessblog.com/how-to-build-body-lik…

Martica Heaner, M.A., M.Ed.,<< AMA and Ph.D and MD

Resistance Exercise Training
Its Role in the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease , Randy W. Braith, PhD; Kerry J. Stewart, EdD
http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/content-nw/full… (slight favor in fat loss with NO muscle gain for Aerobic exercise according to this article)
There is overwhelming research evidence that RT prevents decline in skeletal muscle mass and function when the mechanical stimuli provided by tasks of daily living are not sufficient to offset these declines with aging.15–17 Adults who do not perform regular RT lose approximately 0.46 kg of muscle per annum from the fifth decade on.18 Furthermore, adults who do not perform RT experience a 50% reduction in type 2 muscle fibers, the fibers responsible for high levels of strength, by age 80 years.19 The profound beneficial effects of RT on the musculoskeletal system can contribute to the maintenance of functional abilities and prevent osteoporosis, sarcopenia, and accompanying falls, fractures, and disabilities.15,17,18 A comprehensive comparison of the chronic effects of RT versus aerobic exercise training in multiple organ systems is presented in Table 1.

Article Abstract:

Weight loss may be the most effective way for middle-aged and older overweight men to reduce their risk factors for coronary artery disease. Researchers randomized 170 healthy, middle-aged or elderly overweight men to a reducing diet, exercise or no intervention (the control group). Forty-four men completed the 9-month diet, 49 completed the 9-month exercise program and 18 men made up the control group. At the end of the study, 45% of the men in the diet group had lost more than 10% of their body weight. Diet significantly reduced their glucose and insulin levels as well as their total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and blood pressure compared to the control group. The men in the exercise group experienced reductions in their total and LDL cholesterol compared to the control group, but not to the same extent as those in the diet group.

Guess what the 9-month exercise program was?

Increase the amount of muscle in your body. For every extra pound of muscle you put on, your body uses around 50 extra calories a day. In a recent study, researchers found that regular weight training boosts basal metabolic rate by about 15%. This is because muscle is ‘metabolically active’ and burns more calories than other body tissue even when you’re not moving.

Training with weights just 3 times a week for around 20 minutes is enough to build muscle. Not only will you be burning more calories, you’ll look better – whatever your weight.

Dr. Katch, M.D.“Resistance weight training during caloric restriction enhances lean body weight maintenance” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 47:19-25
“You will burn the same amount of calories in three 10-minute exercise sessions as you will during 30 consecutive minutes” Angela Perry, American Medical Association
“The American Medical Association (AMA) advises people to combine both cardiovascular exercises and weight-training exercises to receive the maximum benefits of their workout routine.”
Changes in lipid and lipoprotein levels after weight training. JAMA. 1984 Jul 27;252(4):504–506

so, a 40 year old female should have a body like Hugh Jackman?

Hugh Jackman is 40….. and we are talking body transformations. I doubt she is going to run the NYC marathon anytime soon.

and the article was based upon building muscle with weight training.

It also states that he did cardio on a treadmill to burn the fat.

Yes to get down to %6 body fat, he used a boot camp HIT training on Friday and supplemented with cardio to burn excess fat (20 minutes of cardio 1 day a week when he worked out 6) . It is common for body builders to supplement weightlifting with cardio, not cardio with weight lifting. Additionally, for people trying to do body transformations, trainers often have them do HIT weightlifting and low cardio. Running or walking when people are over weight is not a safe idea for joint preservation, trust me. I don’t think you want to get into a discussion about building muscle and the benefits. You are very mistaken if you think you can take a 250-300 lb person and start them out on cardio and have them drop weight safely.

That article had a diet vs non-diet group. But only one type of exercise… weight training.

The article also states muscle burns 50calories at rest while the one I posted said it was very close to 15.

“In reality, one pound of muscle burns about seven to 15 calories a day, not 50, explains Dymphna Gallagher, the director of the body composition unit at the New York Obesity Research Center in Manhattan. So, if a person has managed to stick to a program lifting progressively heavier weights for a long enough stretch of time, they may accumulate enough extra muscle to boost their metabolism by about 14 to 30 calories a day—not several hundred, as is often claimed.”

“If you are like the majority of people, who want to lose weight, then you are certainly confused with all the disinformation that so called fat loss “experts” are telling you. If those “experts” were really so smart then surely we would see much better results. But the truth is that most people fail to lose fat permanently because they get the wrong advice.

Why you should avoid long and slow cardio exercise workouts

You may be really dedicated and be really focused when it comes to exercising and nutrition but if you are doing the wrong things then no matter how hard you try, you still will not achieve your goals. A lot of people are doing long and slow cardio exercises like walking or jogging all the time, but in reality this exercise method is one of the worst ways to lose fat.

A typical fat losing workout that people do in the gym, is about 30 minutes long and every minute seems like torture. This is also the reason why people give up so quickly. It is not a fun way to lose fat and if the results are not the same as the effort you put in then why even bother, right?

The reason why excessive cardio is not the best option is that, most overweight people are predispose to muscle and joint injuries. Because their bodies are not used to this type of a activity, especially when the activity is repetitive. The last thing you want when you are overweigt and just starting to lose fat, is injuring yourself. And cardio also burns fat only during the exercise not after the exercise.

To lose fat quickly and effectively you first have to speed up your metabolism. Your metabolism is like a furnace that keeps burning calories, the slower it is, the less calories you burn. So the key is to speed it up, so you are constantly burning calories at a very high rate.

Weight training is the only type of exercise that does that. If you are not doing weight training, then you will never get the results you want. When you are on a low calorie diet plan and if you are doing excessive cardio then you lose muscle. So the less muscle you have the slower your metabolism is. So the key to fat loss, is not long and slow cardio exercise workouts, but weight training. When you are doing cardio then make them a bit shorter, 20-25 minutes, and more intense."

I wont even get into the aspects of sports medicine risk versus injury for over weight people…

Nope, I was not getting into a discussion on the extremes… just generalities.

Diet is the number one way to loose weight.
The argument comes with should you use strength training supplemented with cardio, or cardio supplemented with strength training.

For those who do not want to look like Hugh Jackman, I would follow the research which points to cardio.

Again research or practical application does not point to cardio over resistance training. At best it is a combination of the two. But to start an over weight individual out on cardio is bad advise. Feel free to use MD consult to reaffirm this. And according to the AMA exercise is the number one way to loose weight as it takes people longer to adjust their eating habits and leptin management.

Shambo, I agree with you for the most part. There is no doubt that given equivalent effort cardio is going to burn far more calories than weight lifting. SO, for simply shedding fat it will be superior assuming that you’re not doing so much that you’re causing a catabolic state in your body where you’re actually losing muscle mass. That isn’t as easy to do as some would have you think.

My only knock on the “run to get thin” way of thinking is that running is hard on the joints. And running with an extra thirty pounds of fat is even worse. So, I wouldn’t be encouraging anyone who has a lot of weight to lose to be doing tons of running.

But, I would definitely encourage the OP to add in some weights as it has a big effect on nutrient partitioning and the maintenance (and possible addition) of lean body mass.

I never mentioned running except to use the analogy of a marathon runner.
There are many recommended non-impact forms of cardio. Especially for the obese cases that is used as an example of why not to do cardio.

I also stated that you should supplement with strength.

Arguing with body builders on a body builder site that body building isn’t the best way to loose weight is a no win from the beginning… but I thought it was worth a try.

Shambo, as I’m sure you would appreciate, looking like Hugh Jackman is not that easy (not in such a short time as he achieved his results, at least). Most of us won’t accept to wake up at 4am to eat certain amount of protein etc. and I guess none of us live under full-time dietitian supervision. :)

My example is myself. I was overweight when I was in early teens. Dieting was a nightmare. My weight kept playing yo-yo: Motivation… Weight Down… Fed up… Weight Up… Then I started to play Waterpolo, and swimming and the trainings helped me in slimming down. But, still, in these days, I used to say “oh, I put on weight even when I drink water”. Approx 10 years ago, I started to do weight lifting. Nothing too serious. A few times a week at home. This was enough to kick start the metabolism. After reading etc. I started to reduce my meals and have at least two snacks in between 3 smaller meals. I’ve tried a lot of stuff with the nutrition, especially with the carb/fat/protein ratio. For example, for a while I made the mistake of not eating enough fat. Learning from my mistakes, I now know my good fats (and how much I should eat) which are crucial for the maintenance of my muscle mass.

Having said that I’m nowhere near the 6% BF but I’m 35 now and my metabolism is high. Now, a few weeks of motivation at the gym sheds a few pounds of fat without loosing (and most of the time with muscle gain) any muscle mass. I look much healthier and arguably younger than my friends of same age :) (don’t tell them I say that).

So, I agree with daprettyboi’s points, even though I don’t have the studies to point to. But my landmark in this is myself. I know what my metabolism became over the years by eating right and by training right. It was not over night but my weight hasn’t been yo-yoing for a looong time :). A few years ago I even came very close to single-digit body fat %.

This whole story is something that I could’t get by CV alone. It didn’t even work for me when I was younger. That’s why I’d recommend weight training over cardio.

Disclamer: I have nothing against marathon runners by the way :).

How does something like circuit training play into this? By that I mean stations that switch from strength to cardio every 30-45 seconds. Is the cardio station just a rest between strengths but still keeping the muscles warmed up?