Too much cardio burns away muscle!!! Wtf!

hush7hush

I like to put my strength & cardio together and do circuit training. [:

TourThePast

The biggest problem with slavishly following the "eat your exercise calories" tenet is not that it is completely wrong, it's that there is no way to accurately determine what that number is.

Plus, exercise makes up only one component of your daily energy expenditure, and usually the smallest one at that.

So, when someone says "I ate all my exercise calories and lost weight" and another says "I didn't eat any of my exercise calories and lost weight", not only could both of them be correct, both could easily be incurring the same calorie deficit per day.

The problem is aggravated by the equally slavish practice of using 1200 calories/day as the "standard".

Increase your calorie intake to 1500 per day. Do cardio. Lift weights. Be consistent. Take a "diet break" every few weeks. Do a mixture of intensities. You won't go into "starvation mode", you won't lose significant muscle mass, you will lose weight.

That won't work for everyone, sadly 1500 calories is maintenance level for me, but I'm hardly average; for a normal person this is great advice.

MissTomGettingThin

I'm confused now!
when posts left, right and centre are saying you need to work muscles as well as cardio to help burn more energy but then you get a calorie deficit to lose weight - how do we still lose fat AND MUSCLE??
I started MFP in January and by April had lost 26lb by eating all calories and doing a teeny bit of weight lifting - free weights - with lots of cardio.
I fell off the wagon and have gone up a little and Im sort of stuck now.
I'm doing more weights and about the same cardio.

If we want to lose fat do we or do we not use weights too?

Thanks and sorry.
A

Pinky67

There are a couple facts to this whole weight loss game that often get muddled.

1. When you are losing weight, you are going to lose some muscle. You can keep it to a minimum by eating plenty of protein and weight lifiting, but you are still going to lose some muscle.

2. You can not simultaneously add muscle and lose fat, with the exception of what is called beginner gains. Beginner gains happen when a very out of shape and overweight person starts a healthy lifestyle. Unfortunately beginner gains don't last that long, which is why people have such a hard time when they are struggling with the last 15 lbs.

It's fairly basic:

We need to eat at a deficit to lose weight, and while at a deficit you can not build muscle.

To build muscle your body needs there to be a surplus of calories; can you build a house without materials?

You are sooo right! The voice of reason! I do not eat my excercise calories. Seems too defeat the purpose. I am currently losing 1.5 to 2kg per week

Speedy89

That is certainly the case...it is more true for certain cardio exercises though. I learned the following from personal experience:

Distance running burns your upper body muscle like crazy...if you do muscle training it will for the most part keep your muscle from being burned, but it will not build muscle if you are running long distances on a regular basis. Any noticeable muscle growth would occur very slowly.

Bicycling does not burn upper body muscle as much as running. I am not sure why this is, but I have a few theories.
1) You are using your upper body/core somewhat while riding a road bike, which may tell your body to hold onto upper body muscle.
2) Your total body weight has much smaller impact to your success on a bicycle vs. your success in a long distance run...your body may notice this, and so when you run it may be more inclined to shed as many excess pounds as possible (muscle and fat) compared to when you are biking.

And by the way, it is possible to build muscle and lose fat...Although this is more true when it comes to leg muscle, abs, and your heart.

Eat plenty of protein and drink plenty of water, and your muscle burn will be minimized considerably.

SoCalSwimmerDude

This is about the only aspect of MFP that is lacking in my humble opinion. We don't see much about muscle building because it is so focused on weight loss. Sorry everyone, but it is a FACT that alot of cardio in absence of resistance training (weights, push-ups, etc) will burn muscle. That was OK w/ me (and I would assume alot of people on here) because I just wanted to lose the weight and figure everything out later.

Well, now is later. A little over a month ago, I switched to "normal cardio" (2-3 times a week at 20-30 minutes each), but put myself on a major weight training program. At the same time, I've been slowly upping my cals, eating much more protein, eating more carbs as needed, and focusing on muscle building/fat loss. My results are through the roof. The fat is burning off and my metabolism is insane.

I've learned the hard way that it is EXTREMELY difficult, if not impossible, to actually build muscle mass on a calorie deficit... something that often goes unsaid on this site. Hopefully, most of us will get to a point where we're more concerned with it, but in the meantime, I think a healthy dose of cardio, with weight training, and a solid healthy diet is great!

P.S. For more nutritional information and weight training information w/ regard to this whole scenario, I had to head over to bodybuilding.com because I just couldn't find it here. Its not exactly commonplace for muscular guys to get on here and explain how they did it. We have a few, but it isn't common.

sandislim

You can get a break down of muscle from both cardio and weight lifting. However, on rest days from weight lifting your body builds the muscles back up to be even stronger than before. Cardio does burn fat, but whatever burns fat will also burn muscle - thats how it works. Body builders lose muscle when cutting, but they train hard to prevent a lot of muscle loss.

If you want to lose fat you will lose muscle. However if you are happy with the amount of muscle you have and want to burn the fat from the top so it shows through, you need to lift weights to keep the muscle you have as well as doing cardio and calorie cutting for fat loss. Carb cutting helps towards the end of fat loss as it strips away water to show more muscle definition.

I do HIIT everyday for fat loss and I do weight lifting to keep the muscle I've already gained on other programs - I've so far seen more progress doing HIIT than straight cardio. I have also found that I have had substantial muscle gain from HIIT and often get muscle burn from it but then I am fairly new to it.

Lozze

As well as, if you are wanting or needing to lose a somewhat large amount of weight, cardio is definetly something that needs to be a main focus

No. You need the balance. Weight loss helps with fat loss as well and it also gets the muscles in shape for when that fat is gone.

futurefitgirl88

So i am a cradio freak! I will burn 1000 calories on the eliptical on a daily basis, so why aren't i seeing the results i want!! B/C
i found out that too much cardio burns away muuscle!! WTF right??? who would of thought? so i started lifting more and doing less amount of cardio and im already seeing more results!!! Any suggestions ...... xoxo :-)

any kind of exercise destroys muscles (that is why you rest to help them rebuild!)....anything more than 50 minutes of cardio is too much cardio! If you are burning 1000 in 50mins then bravo! If you are on the elliptical for 2 hours...then step it down!

LaMujerMasBonitaDelMundo

Too much of anything is not good whether lifting weights or doing cardio. Moderation is always the key.

3shirts

I agree with Kyle.
It's a simple matter of energy. If you use a lot of it but haven't consumed enough then your body will take it from anywhere it can and this includes muscle as well as fat. If you are not eating enough and doing a lot of cardio then doing weights will only make the problem worse plus your body will struggle to rebuild the muscle damage and you will be sore, tired and potentially injured as a result.