Is cardio necessary to lose weight?

ladyhusker39

rheddmobile wrote: »

lk031 wrote: »

(Sigh, now I feel nice and embarrassed lol) - the entries that make the least sense (like mcdonalds + chilis) are things that I tried to piece together when eating out at a restaurant - I was just picking things from the list since the restaurant had no info, so they are definitely guesses. I'm not sure how to approach measuring food at restaurants and I eat out fairly often.
The chicken parm was a recipe I made myself (so the cals on that came from putting the recipe entry in the app). I use the barcode scanner on the prepackaged foods that I make myself at home, I figured that would be accurate, but now I'll be keeping an eye on the serving sizes.

I guess it's a combo of too much restaurant food (despite trying to pick not-terrible things) and not logging right. I thought I had a pretty good sense of ounces from eyeballing it (especially since I was losing weight for three months) but maybe not.

I appreciate all the feedback from you all. I'll buckle down and try again. If my logging has been wrong the whole time, that does explain why I was losing for the first three months with cardio and not since then. Still pretty new to this whole thing.

Don't be embarrassed, if you ask for help you will definitely get opinions from every side about everything you were doing! Counting calories accurately and eating out frequently is tough to do.

As for why you were losing at first and not now, the extra cardio was earning you some extra exercise calories so you were able to eat more than you thought you were and still stay in a deficit. That's why MFP gives you a calorie estimate for your cardio and instructs you to eat more when you exercise more.

Without the cardio, your calories out are lower, so your logging errors are catching up to you.

I was going to say pretty much this, but you've already said it so much better than I would have.

OP, to solve this you could either start cardio again and/or tighten up your logging as has been suggested. If you do cardio please chose something you enjoy so that it's not a chore to do every day. I suspect that's why you dropped it to begin with.

ladyhusker39

thespringbuck wrote: »

I've skimmed through the responses here to make sure I'm not repeating what everyone has already said and there are some going in the right direction towards the end, the majority are missing it though.

1200 calories is just too low, you cannot sustain that level of activity on 1200 calories. Your body has down regulated it's metabolism in order to survive essentially, so what you need to be doing is to slowly start consuming more calories with a focus on a positive protein balance.

This is a slow reverse diet, you can't just go from where you are now to higher calories overnight, it takes time and during that time, your metabolism with adjust accordingly.

In conjunction with this, you need to pull back on the amount of cardio you're doing each week, focus more on being more active in general day to day and get down to the weights section. Muscle is metabolically active tissue, it burns calories by simply existing (and no u won't turn into hulk).

This is a link to an article on my Facebook page that starts to address the priorities of losing body fat and other posts pick up on other elements of confusion I've seen. PLEASE do yourself a favour and take this an offer to help get things going in the right direction.

No, this is not correct. And please stop trying to pull people to your FB page. That's why MFP won't let you add the link. It's self promotion and violates MFP's terms of use. Plus it's just plain woo.

LiftHeavyThings27105

Actually, what @thespringbuck said is ABSOLUTELY correct. People get so focused on eating fewer and fewer calories and doing more and more cardio in order to chase numbers on the scale (and, to be clear, I am making a VERY general comment that is NOT directed at the lady who asked the initial question) that they put themsleves in a very bad position.

Is the OP likely not tracking her food properly? Potentially. And, probably. And, it is always a good idea to check yourself on that. Each and every one of us. Sometimes we get lazy and - for example - don't add any of the half-and-half creamer that we put in our coffee! I mean,the coffee that we put into our creamer! I mean, that stuff does not have ANY calories and absolutely NO fat, right?

But, it does sound at least feasible to have the thought process that the OP has possibly worked herself into a corner (so-to-speak) with a very low caloric intake and a lot of cardio. The body, which has the sole purpose of survival, is going to get very efficient - as others have stated - at doing things. It also is - due to the low caloric intake - grabbing all of the calories that it can get and holding on to them in the "I am not sure when I am going to get some energy again, so I am going to hold on to it".

However, it might be a good idea to check the simple stuff. Let's review and - if necessary - shore up your tracking. Are you really eating ONLY 1200 calories? Let's check portion control. Let's check frequency. Let's check everything. Once we do that....then we have the conversation about other things. Like, how long have you been doing this? How many times have you done something like this. How does a "normal day of eating" look when you are not "dieting down"? Do you do any weight training? Have you ever heard of doing a reverse diet?

Anyway, a reverse diet - when applied properly - is a VERY BENEFICIAL thing.

cqbkaju

To lose weight, your Calories In (eat) must be lower than your Calories Out (Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), biological processes, exercise, recovery, etc.).
It is a math "balancing act" based on values that are a few percentage points different for everyone, here and there.

How you make CI<CO is up to you, but if the equation is wrong then you will not get results.

Some of us say you should exercise because it makes it easier to lose weight (it increases the Calories Out) and will help one become more healthy in general.
Proper exercise helps protect your muscle tissue or even build new muscle if you do it right.
More muscle burns more calories.

Others argue that you don't "need" to exercise to lose weight, as if exercise has no impact on your Calories Out at all, but that misses the point.
Do you "need" to? Can you lose weight just but cutting calories? Yes.
Is it a good idea? No.
You may be thinner but still unhealthy and at risk for various ailments because you will lose fat but also burn muscle that way.
Muscle is "metabolically expensive" so your body will burn it off if it is not being used.
Less muscle burns less calories.
When you gain the weight back it will be mostly fat and your body fat percentage will be even HIGHER than before because of the muscle loss.
The lack of muscle also lowers your BMR which makes it harder to lose more weight.

We aren't even discussing how the lack of resistance training impacts bone density, sarcopenia, and such yet.

My fighters and I watch what we eat (MFP), get plenty of exercise (with a focus on strength training) and don't eat all (or any...) of the "exercise calories" back.
Works for us.
You need to find a way to make the equation balance out in a manner that is sustainable for you in the long term.

It takes discipline (not "motivation", there is a big difference!) and time, no matter how you try to do it.

You should be eating at a calorie deficit (no more than 20% of your TDEE should be necessary), performing resistance training in the 5RM to 8RM range 3 or 4 days per week and doing HIIT "cardio" in your off days or after you lift, if you want my professional advice.
Do not do "cardio" before lifting (it wastes muscle glycogen and ATP) but you can safety do some "cardio" after your weight training if you have anything left in the tank.

kimny72

lk031 wrote: »

(Sigh, now I feel nice and embarrassed lol) - the entries that make the least sense (like mcdonalds + chilis) are things that I tried to piece together when eating out at a restaurant - I was just picking things from the list since the restaurant had no info, so they are definitely guesses. I'm not sure how to approach measuring food at restaurants and I eat out fairly often.
The chicken parm was a recipe I made myself (so the cals on that came from putting the recipe entry in the app). I use the barcode scanner on the prepackaged foods that I make myself at home, I figured that would be accurate, but now I'll be keeping an eye on the serving sizes.

I guess it's a combo of too much restaurant food (despite trying to pick not-terrible things) and not logging right. I thought I had a pretty good sense of ounces from eyeballing it (especially since I was losing weight for three months) but maybe not.

I appreciate all the feedback from you all. I'll buckle down and try again. If my logging has been wrong the whole time, that does explain why I was losing for the first three months with cardio and not since then. Still pretty new to this whole thing.

Don't be embarrassed! Logging is a skill and most of us would look back at our first few months of logging and giggle . Don't get too caught up in the minutiae - focus on really good logging for a month and if you are still having problems at that point, THEN start looking at other possibilities. Good luck!