Is cardio bad for you?
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You dont need to eat back all your calories though.
You also benefit from higher metabolism and other health benefits.
If you apply yourself, then exercise and cardio can make a significant contribution to weight loss either by assisting your deficit management by giving you more to eat or contributing directly.
Btw your exmaple of a person eating no protein? Who is that person? If you eat a normal balanced diet then you are almost certain to meet your protein requirements. Who chooses not to eat any protein at all and why? Do you know them?0 -
You dont need to eat back all your calories though.
You also benefit from higher metabolism and other health benefits.
If you apply yourself, then exercise and cardio can make a significant contribution to weight loss either by assisting your deficit management by giving you more to eat or contributing directly.
Btw your exmaple of a person eating no protein? Who is that person? If you eat a normal balanced diet then you are almost certain to meet your protein requirements. Who chooses not to eat any protein at all and why? Do you know them?
I don’t question the other health benefits, but not necessarily higher metabolism. Exercise does give you a higher base, but you can’t dip into that pool very far without issues. Sustainable fat loss comes at a moderate pace that you have to base on your circumstances (if you have more to lose you can lose faster, but that will have to slow as you get closer “normal” body fat percentage). The general rule of thumb is 1 - 2 lbs per week.
Yes, I’ve met some people who thought being a strict vegan was healthy, so they started eating the crap out of fruit and veggies. Three to four weeks in they are crashing.
Maybe it was an exaggerated situation, but you do see the point of not properly managing your macros and nutrition, don’t you? Many people don’t eat balanced diets, especially when they’re cutting calories.
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Hi all, been logging in for almost 4 weeks straight, let myself go a bit (about +15 lbs). Eating much better lately and doing intense 45-60 minute cardio sessions 4-5x/week to start getting some pounds off (-7 lbs so far). So today I read that cardio will make me fat, which is not good if true. I plan on working weights into my routine starting this weekend, but what's the deal with the cardio making you fat business?
Exercise is for fitness and adding to your calorie deficit. Eating at a calorie deficit and managing your macros is what helps you lose fat and manage your weight.
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AllanMisner wrote: »This is an excellent question! Our bodies were designed to do certain things, our genetics drive what we’re best at, and volume can be a problem for even the best of us.
Elite endurance athletes often struggle with very bad health issues. Why? Because they pushed themselves so far for so long. Exercise is stress, and the more intense, more often, longer we’re under stress, the more acute the response. In short, or light bouts, that can lead to adaptive improvement. And then there’s the line where it becomes chronic.
From personal experience, I’ve found my appetite goes crazy when I’m pushing out a lot of cardio. So, when I’m training for a longer run (like a marathon), I’m likely to put on weight. If I train doing long, slow distance and mix in some HIIT, I’m able to avoid the appetite pop.
Fat loss comes from what and how much you eat. Exercise should be geared toward other health and fitness goals. If you want good cardiovascular endurance, then by all means, train that way. But don’t think, I’ll burn more calories and lose faster. Patience and persistence are key.
I actually find that cardio curbs my appetite. When I come home from work I am starving but I usually work out first , afterwards my appetite is way lower, so it probably depends on the individual
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I don't think cardio is bad for you, however if all you're doing is cardio then that's bad for you, the best cardio is HIIT high/low intensity cardio, it burns fat and builds muscles. Too much cardio will eventually break down your muscles,and raise your cortisol levels. spending countless hours on a cardio machine is not the way to go. Lift weight along with your cardio and really see your body change, unless you want to be skinny fat, meaning no muscle tone at all, like squishy, yuk!
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I don't think cardio is bad for you, however if all you're doing is cardio then that's bad for you, the best cardio is HIIT high/low intensity cardio, it burns fat and builds muscles. Too much cardio will eventually break down your muscles,and raise your cortisol levels. spending countless hours on a cardio machine is not the way to go. Lift weight along with your cardio and really see your body change, unless you want to be skinny fat, meaning no muscle tone at all, like squishy, yuk!
No. 'Skinny fat' happens when you lose weight and don't work out at all, and have no muscle tone. People who do cardio do have muscle tone. Too much cardio doesn't break down your muscle tone, I have no idea where you'd even get such an idea. While it is a good idea to mix cardio with weights for bone strength, body recomp and muscle building, straight cardio is fine.0 -
Yisrael1981 wrote: »AllanMisner wrote: »
From personal experience, I’ve found my appetite goes crazy when I’m pushing out a lot of cardio.
I actually find that cardio curbs my appetite. When I come home from work I am starving but I usually work out first , afterwards my appetite is way lower, so it probably depends on the individual
Same here. Cardio curbs my appetite too. However, I do not do too much of it - half an hour to an hour...0 -
I took up running and gained 600 pounds. I died. Don't let it happen to you.
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Yisrael1981 wrote: »AllanMisner wrote: »This is an excellent question! Our bodies were designed to do certain things, our genetics drive what we’re best at, and volume can be a problem for even the best of us.
Elite endurance athletes often struggle with very bad health issues. Why? Because they pushed themselves so far for so long. Exercise is stress, and the more intense, more often, longer we’re under stress, the more acute the response. In short, or light bouts, that can lead to adaptive improvement. And then there’s the line where it becomes chronic.
From personal experience, I’ve found my appetite goes crazy when I’m pushing out a lot of cardio. So, when I’m training for a longer run (like a marathon), I’m likely to put on weight. If I train doing long, slow distance and mix in some HIIT, I’m able to avoid the appetite pop.
Fat loss comes from what and how much you eat. Exercise should be geared toward other health and fitness goals. If you want good cardiovascular endurance, then by all means, train that way. But don’t think, I’ll burn more calories and lose faster. Patience and persistence are key.
I actually find that cardio curbs my appetite. When I come home from work I am starving but I usually work out first , afterwards my appetite is way lower, so it probably depends on the individual
Same if it's intense. But then I eat those calories the next day so I come out even.0 -
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Cardio is bad for me because I hate it.0
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If you wanted to get all scientific about the basis for this claim in any case, dieting in general is a stress. And of course training is a stress. And the more extreme you do of each, the more of a stress occurs. A lot of what is going on when folks try to combine excessive caloric deficits with massive amounts of activity is that cortisol just goes through the roof Simply, you get these massive chronic elevations in cortisol levels.
Cortisol is one of those hormones that I imagine everyone reading this has heard about and about which a lot of misinformation exists. Simply cortisol is a stress hormone, released by the body in response to nearly all kinds of stress. In the fitness/bodybuilding world, cortisol has gotten an almost exclusively negative reputation (cortisol is ‘bad’ in the way that testosterone and thyroid are ‘good’) although this is simplistically incorrect.
Rather, whether cortisol does good things or bad things in the body depends on how it’s released. For example, the morning cortisol pulse helps to promote fat mobilization. In contrast, a chronic elevation of cortisol (especially in the face of high insulin levels) tend to promote visceral fat accumulation.
Chronic elevations in cortisol can cause a lot of bad things to happen. One of them is simply water retention,water retention can mask fat loss, sometimes for extremely extended periods.
Another effect of chronically elevated cortisol levels is leptin resistance in the brain. Leptin is a hormone that plays a crucial role in appetite and weight control. It is thought to have at least two major functions. First, it crosses the blood-brain barrier and binds to receptors in the appetite center in the brain, regulating brain cells that tell you how much to eat.
I'll just put this here for some clarification but I think it is unnecessarily over-complicating things, a majority of people combine weight training and cardio with no problems at all.
I think just focusing on CICO is fine, if it aint broke don't fix it!
source:http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html/0 -
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It is slightly true only because you are first losing water weight but no it will not make you fat. You SHOULD start weight training and do more of 15-30 min of cardio with 45-60 of weight training just so you are not sacrificing muscle mass alongside with fat. But no, too much cardio will not make you fat but it will detroy you muscles.0
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upgradeddiddy wrote: »It is slightly true only because you are first losing water weight but no it will not make you fat. You SHOULD start weight training and do more of 15-30 min of cardio with 45-60 of weight training just so you are not sacrificing muscle mass alongside with fat. But no, too much cardio will not make you fat but it will detroy you muscles.
So everyone should follow this routine irrespective of fitness goals and abilities?
Um, no.
Care to guess how much cardio it takes to ""destroy you (sic) muscles"?
Oh yes, there was a study on people running ultra marathons day after day that showed some slight and localised muscle damage. Not really an issue that is going to affect many people.0 -
WHAAAAAT???
This article is explains that long duration cardio is not the optimal FAT burning method. For burning calories and to stay in a calorie deficit doing cardio workouts does and will help you lose WEIGHT. But you cannot eat more than your burn or you will gain weight. To put your body into an efficient fat burning machine do HIIT and lift weights.
Cardio does NOT make a person gain weight. Re-read the article and take the advice from it and do some further research...0 -
Interesting article - not sure what all the negative posts about it are.
Cardio is an excellent exercise to do as a warm up or on rest days, but I haven't seen any evidence that the information in the article is incorrect.
Yes, it's not written very well, but the information in it is correct, high levels of cortical in the body are not good (cortisol in it's self is an essential hormone and many great things - but as we like to say on MFP, everything in moderation).
Chronic cardio can be extremely bad for you. If you look at some of the elite endurance runners they are probably without doubt some of the fittest people on the planet, but I should think they are also some of the most unhealthy.0 -
Cardio actually helped me loose 10 pounds of my weight. I was weight training 4x a week with hardly any cardio except when I would do HIIT and that was once or twice a month. I hit a 6 week plateau where I didn't loose anything. I decided to start doing Zumba 3x a week just for fun (shut up it's my guilty pleasure) and I randomly lost 10 pounds. I hadn't changed anything with my diet, I just added cardio.0
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