Is cardio necessary to lose weight?
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lk031
Posts: 12 Member
I've been working out for about 6 months. In the first three months I had been doing cardio (treadmill or C25K running program) in addition to various classes at the gym - most days I did 2 workouts, one cardio and one something else.
For the most recent three months the cardio has dropped off (slacker) but I still do at least one class at the gym (45-60min) per day.
The whole time I have tracked calorie intake (1200 cal target) and macros. In the first three months I lost about 12 pounds but I have not lost any more since then. Is the lack of cardio to blame? I'm just confused and could use some opinions. Thanks
For the most recent three months the cardio has dropped off (slacker) but I still do at least one class at the gym (45-60min) per day.
The whole time I have tracked calorie intake (1200 cal target) and macros. In the first three months I lost about 12 pounds but I have not lost any more since then. Is the lack of cardio to blame? I'm just confused and could use some opinions. Thanks
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Replies
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Cardio is great for health, fitness and helping add to your calorie deficit. But no, it is not necessary to lose weight. Well you lowered your activity level and may not have adjusted your calories. Mind you since they are already at 1200 the lowest end, are you weighing all your food, all the time?2
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No, but it's great for your health and well being.3
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Nope. Truthfully, the macros don't matter much for weight loss either.1
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Just watching calorie intake and keeping your physical activity high is all you need. I like to mix my weight lifting and cardio together. Get my cardio and weight training done all at once. Have you tried doing super sets or giant sets? The weight will fly off and will throw your body for a loop. I have a friend that I am doing a diet/workout program with to help him lose weight. He picked the diet I pick the workouts. . Get creative with your workouts to keep your body guessing. Makes working out not to boring. Here is what we did yesterday
Giant sets with cardio
SET 1
50 jump rope reps
Bent over reverse fly
D.B. press
5 sets of 10 reps. ( jump rope 50 reps every set) 1 minute rest
SET 2
50 jump rope reps
D.B. rows
D.B. crush press
5 sets of 20 reps ( jump rope 50 reps every set) 1 minute rest
SET 3
Tabata for 4 minutes with push up plank holds.
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Not necessary, but I burn the most calories doing cardio and therefore see weight changes faster.1
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Nope, all you need is a calorie deficit.
If you are logging 1200 cals on a daily basis and not losing weight, it's time to commit to at least a couple of weeks of tightening up your logging. All solids and semisolids weighed out on a food scale. Double check the entries you are using in the database to either the published USDA values or the package (many entries are user entered and incorrect). And check in with yourself to really get honest that you are logging everything - beverages, condiments, nibbles, late night snacks, everything.
If you do all that for a month, are really eating 1200 calories, and are not losing weight, get some blood work done to see if thyroid function or some other medical issue is in play. But 95% of the time, people are eating more than they think - when I started using the food scale I learned I was eating 300 or even more extra calories every day!1 -
If you're not losing weight and it's been three months, you are not in a deficit. It's unusual not to lose weight at 1200 calories, even sedentary. Macros are not relevant. Are you weighing all your food? This sounds like a logging problem. When you were doing extra cardio, you were expending enough extra calories to make up for it. But it's not necessary to add cardio to lose weight. You just have to limit your calories.
I'm surprised that none of your gym classes are cardio based - there are a lot more options for cardio than just running.1 -
Nope. Energy is work. Work is moving mass from one place to another. Cardio will help you build up the ability to move more mass farther in shorter time, but beyond that...
Walking 2 miles in half an hour or running it in 15 minutes won't burn significantly different numbers of calories.1 -
Running two miles burns twice as much energy as walking two miles because running involves jumping from foot to foot, eg fighting gravity in a way that walking does not.1
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NorthCascades wrote: »No, but it's great for your health and well being.
Came here to say this ^^^^0 -
NorthCascades wrote: »Running two miles burns twice as much energy as walking two miles because running involves jumping from foot to foot, eg fighting gravity in a way that walking does not.
i believe it burns slightly more, but no way it's even close to twice as much.1 -
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NorthCascades wrote: »Running two miles burns twice as much energy as walking two miles because running involves jumping from foot to foot, eg fighting gravity in a way that walking does not.
i believe it burns slightly more, but no way it's even close to twice as much.
On what basis do you think doing the work of lifting your body weight up off the ground a couple thousand times requires almost no energy?1 -
NorthCascades wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »Running two miles burns twice as much energy as walking two miles because running involves jumping from foot to foot, eg fighting gravity in a way that walking does not.
i believe it burns slightly more, but no way it's even close to twice as much.
On what basis do you think doing the work of lifting your body weight up off the ground a couple thousand times requires almost no energy?
because that's not what's happening. running isn't skipping.
a quick google found me this Runners World article (obvious runner bias) about a study done on the subject.
https://www.runnersworld.com/peak-performance/running-v-walking-how-many-calories-will-you-burn
They found about a 25% increase in calories-per-mile from running an 10:00m pace vs walking an 18:36m pace.
Sizable, larger than i would have guessed, but still no where near double.
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It's not necessary, but it makes things way easier. It's also very good for your overall health and well being. The secret is doing something you enjoy and not going overboard...steady and sustainable should be the objective.
Working out twice per day is going to result in burnout for most people. The only time I do that is if I'm training for something specifically, and it's for a limited time. I typically do three rides during the week of about 10 miles which takes me less than 40 minutes and a longer ride on the weekend sometime. I ride on Mon, Wed, Fri and either Sat or Sun...I lift on Tuesday evening and either Friday or Sunday.1 -
NorthCascades wrote: »Running two miles burns twice as much energy as walking two miles because running involves jumping from foot to foot, eg fighting gravity in a way that walking does not.
i believe it burns slightly more, but no way it's even close to twice as much.
You can 'believe' anything you like. The facts are that running is at least 26% better at burning calories. Plus, you can go further in less time.
https://www.runnersworld.com/peak-performance/running-v-walking-how-many-calories-will-you-burn
Neither walking nor running is necessary (nor any cardio really) but it is great for the heart, lungs, energy, and feeling great (IMO, of course).1 -
NorthCascades wrote: »Running two miles burns twice as much energy as walking two miles because running involves jumping from foot to foot, eg fighting gravity in a way that walking does not.
i believe it burns slightly more, but no way it's even close to twice as much.
You can 'believe' anything you like. The facts are that running is at least 26% better at burning calories. Plus, you can go further in less time.
https://www.runnersworld.com/peak-performance/running-v-walking-how-many-calories-will-you-burn
Neither walking nor running is necessary (nor any cardio really) but it is great for the heart, lungs, energy, and feeling great (IMO, of course).
i quoted the same article in a later post.0 -
NorthCascades wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »Running two miles burns twice as much energy as walking two miles because running involves jumping from foot to foot, eg fighting gravity in a way that walking does not.
i believe it burns slightly more, but no way it's even close to twice as much.
On what basis do you think doing the work of lifting your body weight up off the ground a couple thousand times requires almost no energy?
because that's not what's happening. running isn't skipping.
a quick google found me this Runners World article (obvious runner bias) about a study done on the subject.
https://www.runnersworld.com/peak-performance/running-v-walking-how-many-calories-will-you-burn
They found about a 25% increase in calories-per-mile from running an 10:00m pace vs walking an 18:36m pace.
Sizable, larger than i would have guessed, but still no where near double.
That's on a gross basis. The same author wrote an article about net calories burned (that is, the truly incremental calories burned by exercise) and provided factors of 0.31 for walking and 0.63 for running. This says that running burns about double the calories of walking over a similar distance.
Also, by definition running is when both feet are off the ground simultaneously at some point during the stride. Essentially, running is skipping (in fact, skipping is used by many runners as a drill/warm up because the motions are quite similar to running).1 -
NorthCascades wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »Running two miles burns twice as much energy as walking two miles because running involves jumping from foot to foot, eg fighting gravity in a way that walking does not.
i believe it burns slightly more, but no way it's even close to twice as much.
On what basis do you think doing the work of lifting your body weight up off the ground a couple thousand times requires almost no energy?
because that's not what's happening. running isn't skipping.
a quick google found me this Runners World article (obvious runner bias) about a study done on the subject.
https://www.runnersworld.com/peak-performance/running-v-walking-how-many-calories-will-you-burn
They found about a 25% increase in calories-per-mile from running an 10:00m pace vs walking an 18:36m pace.
Sizable, larger than i would have guessed, but still no where near double.
That's on a gross basis. The same author wrote an article about net calories burned (that is, the truly incremental calories burned by exercise) and provided factors of 0.31 for walking and 0.63 for running. This says that running burns about double the calories of walking over a similar distance.
Also, by definition running is when both feet are off the ground simultaneously at some point during the stride. Essentially, running is skipping (in fact, skipping is used by many runners as a drill/warm up because the motions are quite similar to running).
where? I see in plenty of places that running burns twice as many calories PER MINUTE compared to running, and that there's a small increase in calorie burn AFTER running.
Please show me an article that says running over a particular distance burns twice as many calories as walking the same distance.0 -
I've been working out for about 6 months. In the first three months I had been doing cardio (treadmill or C25K running program) in addition to various classes at the gym - most days I did 2 workouts, one cardio and one something else.
For the most recent three months the cardio has dropped off (slacker) but I still do at least one class at the gym (45-60min) per day.
The whole time I have tracked calorie intake (1200 cal target) and macros. In the first three months I lost about 12 pounds but I have not lost any more since then. Is the lack of cardio to blame? I'm just confused and could use some opinions. Thanks
Do I understand this correctly you've been eating 1200 calories per day for 6 months and haven't lost anything for 3 months? Is that 1200 net or total? If you haven't lost anything for 3 months you probably should eat less or exercise more as you are not in a deficit.3
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