Cardio Exercise – Incinerate that Fat

Posted by Chris on Jun 2, 2009 in Workout Info | 1 comment

Many people approach fat loss and general exercise with a bad mentality. It seems people expect to fail, and in turn to fail to achieve their goals. This can become a vicious cycle for those of us who are multiple-attempers. Cardio has long been recognized as a staple in the weight loss regimen however, many people approach cardio with the wrong mindset and the wrong type of cardio. I hope to shed some light on cardio that will burn fat.

Some Common Facts

• A pound of fat is equal to 3500 calories
• Cardio burns calories
• There are good and bad calories, more commonly: fat calories, carbohydrate calories (sugar), protein calories
• Every cardio workout needs to be supplemented with a good diet
• Everyone’s metabolism is different and as such requires a different number of calories to perform bodily duties. Some people may have a higher required caloric in take to maintain their size

Now these facts are fairly well known but their are other facts that people don’t know that will help them succeed with their weight loss. First off the 3500 calories in a pound of fat pretty much means that, say in a week, you increase your calories by 3500 you should gain 1lb but it may not be fat. Think of what you eat an what sources are giving you different kinds of calories. So the same can be said for cutting 3500 calories you will lose 1lb again this may not all be fat. It is important to remember that what you put into your body (think the work you put your body through and what you eat) is what you are going to get back. It is also important to realize that weight is just a number what we should be focused on is lowering our Body Fat %. If you are working out in the gym and doing cardio and notice that you are getting thinner and more defined but your weight hasn’t changed then you are lowering your BF%. It generally is not healthy to lose more than 1-2lb/week.

Proper Fat Burning Cardio

There is a lot of arguments about how to maximize fat burning effects from cardio however, may favorite tried and true method is the low intensity approach. First we need to learn how our bodies use our different types of calories. Carbohydrates are burned by our body when we need a lot of energy immediately in order to sustain function. Fat is burned when our body is working but not at full intensity only low intensity things. So when our body is pushed to the limit with high intensity cardio, our bodies switch gears from burning fat to burning carbs, which is not very effective for burning fat. The best way to burn fat is with a low intensity 60-80% of your max heart rate workout as opposed to cardio to increase endurance which is 80+% MHR. Now a very popular argument is that high intensity cardio increase your Vo2 Max which helps increase oxygen, blood flow, and metabolism in turn helping to burn fat especially since you burn more calories/hour. I think that this method has a good background and makes perfect sense however, it takes a lot of time to significantly increase your Vo2 max by enough to make an impact on your metabolism.

Bad Metabolism? So What!

Genetics play a huge role in our metabolism, or how efficiently we burn energy, but this doesn’t mean we are stuck with what we are given by any stretch. It is possible to increase your metabolism without ever doing cardio. Do you want to know the secret? Muscle increase metabolism meaning the more muscle lbs you have the faster you can annihilate fat. What this means is the better shape your are in the naturally more efficient your body is with burning fat. Remember that your Vo2 max also increases your metabolism. Now many people believe that when they are done using the treadmill (or bike if you will) their metabolism returns to normal. This also isn’t true it generally takes 2 hours after your workout for your metabolism to re-lower. So why does our body store fat? For emergencies really if we aren’t giving our bodies food our metabolism decreases and slowly burns off fat. Fat is also used to help your body absorb vitamins and minerals. Remember that our body prefers to burn fat unless we need more energy in which case we will burn carbs. So let’s recap we have learned that the best way to burn fat is:

• Cardio low intensity
• Some high intensity cardio for Vo2 max
• Increase amount of muscle
• Eat healthy calories so that our bodies burn fat stores
• Approach cardio expecting success not failure do not get discouraged patience is a virtue

I hope that you will find this information helpful in your journey to fitness and well being. If you have any questions, comments, corrections feel free to comment.

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