Cardio and Fat Loss

suziecue66

I added a new pic so that anyone commenting could see where I am coming from.
I have about 45 pounds to lose, 5ft 2in, 45 yrs old. My main goal is stripping the fat, whilst maintaining as much muscle as I can.
I will also be doing HIIT and body weight exercises from home, but want to know how to tackle my morning cardio most effectively.

Is cardio the most effective fat-burner? Should I do 30 min-1hr morning cardio - 6 days on my treadmill? Should I even do cardio?
(Apart from exercising the rest of my day is sedentary. My calories are 1200 - something to change I think).

Hopelessbird

I upped my cardio from 30min (4-5X/week) to 60-90min and strength train 2X/week. The increased workout + diet seems to work for me. I lost 5-6lbs in 2 weeks so far. The scale may not be showing it but my legs started shrinking and toning from the longer workouts.

gungho66

the most effective is strength training then cardio, but if you want to do cardio you'll get a better burn from the high intensity , but a longer burn if you do weights then the cardio

Athena413

From everything I've been reading on cardio vs weight training, doing too much cardio will burn muscle, not fat, so you need to make sure you're not over-doing it.

My personal trainer had me doing cardio about 3x/week for about 30-45 minutes and weight training on alternate days with at least 1 rest day. She also said to be sure to keep my heart rate between 147-166 to avoid getting to that muscle burning point.

Ultimately what burns fat is muscle, so you need to focus on building muscle. You may initially gain weight because muscle is more dense than fat, but you'll be leaner and the fat will melt off more-so than with just doing cardio until you're blue in the face.

ifyouwillit

It depends. If you're doing cardio and eating the same calories as recommended by myfitnesspal to lose weight, and you haven't been seeing any progress, I would suggest you do the following:

45 minutes of cardio

1 minute run or walk as fast as you can
5 minutes walk 3.5mph or above
repeat

This helps to shock your body into a good place when you're trying to lose weight. The added benefit is that you will help increase your cardiovascular health and burn calories quicker when you're on the 1 minute of the cycle.

Then, sprinkle in some weights after each workout. You'll see results.

Athena413

deleted duplicate post...

love4fitnesslove4food_wechange

HIIT is maximum effort cardio and 2-3x a week is enough at 20-30 min a session.

I assume you don't m access to heavy weights--so invest in resistance bands to use while doing your resistance training.

Shoot for 60 minutes activity 5-6 days a week.

Drink enough water, eat whole grains, and avoid refined carbs/processed foods.

Eat enough as well--1200 isn't cutting it.

All the best

suziecue66

Thanks everyone for the input.

Matt_Wild

HIIT is maximum effort cardio and 2-3x a week is enough at 20-30 min a session.

I assume you don't m access to heavy weights--so invest in resistance bands to use while doing your resistance training.

Shoot for 60 minutes activity 5-6 days a week.

Drink enough water, eat whole grains, and avoid refined carbs/processed foods.

Eat enough as well--1200 isn't cutting it.

All the best

Ditto this and by 2-3x a week, it s a max e.g. Monday, Thursday, Sunday with around 72 hours between sets. Its too much on the body otherwise to recover from, when dieting.

erickirb

I added a new pic so that anyone commenting could see where I am coming from.
I have about 45 pounds to lose, 5ft 2in, 45 yrs old. My main goal is stripping the fat, whilst maintaining as much muscle as I can.
I will also be doing HIIT and body weight exercises from home, but want to know how to tackle my morning cardio most effectively.

Is cardio the most effective fat-burner? Should I do 30 min-1hr morning cardio - 6 days on my treadmill? Should I even do cardio?
(Apart from exercising the rest of my day is sedentary. My calories are 1200 - something to change I think).

Cardio is not needed at all to lose fat. A caloric deficit is needed, cardio will just allow you to eat more to have the same size caloric deficit. The best for fat loss with minimal lean muscle loss is a slight caloric deficit (250 cals/day, 0.5lb/week loss, this can be done through diet alone, or a combination of diet and exercise), combined with a heavy lifting strength training program.

Cardio is great for increasing endurance, strengthening the heart, but is not needed to lose weight/fat, and even a lot of cardio can lead to the loss of lean muscle, depending on how you are fueling your body.

SergeantSunshine_reused

You have got some great replies here! All beat me to it

suziecue66

Thanks everyone.

HappilyLifts

Great post. I have similar questions, and my profile pic would look just like yours, only I'm not brave enough to put a body shot on my profile pic and my belly sticks out more, but I still thought "hey, that looks like me"

My trainer has given me a program which is a mixture of cardio (Google Tabata training, it's beyond hard!!) and strength exercises (plank, modified press ups, tricep extensions, lunges and squats). She says to do this no more than 3 times a week and if I want to workout 5 days a week then I should be doing pilates or steady rate cardio e.g treadmill walking on alternate days. She also suggested 1500 cals is too low for the workouts I do (I have a new thread asking questions about cardio/strength and cals on the fitness and exercise message board) so I'm going to aim for 1800 and see what happens.

I only started this program on Thursday (it replaced two other programs, the first was purely cardio, the second was a mix of cardio and weight machines). It's too early to tell what will happen, but I'm hoping for alot of toning and weight loss.

I'm just starting out on MFP and if you need a pal to share progress or whatever feel free to add me as a friend

Good luck!

Fattack

From everything I've been reading on cardio vs weight training, doing too much cardio will burn muscle, not fat, so you need to make sure you're not over-doing it.

My personal trainer had me doing cardio about 3x/week for about 30-45 minutes and weight training on alternate days with at least 1 rest day. She also said to be sure to keep my heart rate between 147-166 to avoid getting to that muscle burning point.

Ultimately what burns fat is muscle, so you need to focus on building muscle. You may initially gain weight because muscle is more dense than fat, but you'll be leaner and the fat will melt off more-so than with just doing cardio until you're blue in the face.

I didn't know you burnt muscle if you went over a certain heart rate... I lost 35lbs last year over 5 months and barely any fat according to my scales (yes, I know body fat percentage measurements from scales are usually very inaccurate, but at least it would have shown a loss!), I was doing strength, but a lot of cardio, with my HR hopping to max rates of 185 (spinning, I was 26 at the time).

This clears a lot up for me too, thanks all.

erickirb

From everything I've been reading on cardio vs weight training, doing too much cardio will burn muscle, not fat, so you need to make sure you're not over-doing it.

My personal trainer had me doing cardio about 3x/week for about 30-45 minutes and weight training on alternate days with at least 1 rest day. She also said to be sure to keep my heart rate between 147-166 to avoid getting to that muscle burning point.

Ultimately what burns fat is muscle, so you need to focus on building muscle. You may initially gain weight because muscle is more dense than fat, but you'll be leaner and the fat will melt off more-so than with just doing cardio until you're blue in the face.

I didn't know you burnt muscle if you went over a certain heart rate... I lost 35lbs last year over 5 months and barely any fat according to my scales (yes, I know body fat percentage measurements from scales are usually very inaccurate, but at least it would have shown a loss!), I was doing strength, but a lot of cardio, with my HR hopping to max rates of 185 (spinning, I was 26 at the time).

This clears a lot up for me too, thanks all.

Ignore HR zones, it comes down to caloric deficit regardless if you get there from diet alone or diet and exercise. You will not burn muscle at high HR zones, some people have higher HR's naturally, that does not mean they burn more muscle then the next guy/girl who has a lower HR.

The harder you workout the faster your results and more fit you will become.

d2footballJRC

Cardio is the most catabolic on your muscles as well though. If you want to preserve muscle mass a lifting regiment would go a long ways to help that.

suziecue66

Great post. I have similar questions, and my profile pic would look just like yours, only I'm not brave enough to put a body shot on my profile pic and my belly sticks out more, but I still thought "hey, that looks like me"

My trainer has given me a program which is a mixture of cardio (Google Tabata training, it's beyond hard!!) and strength exercises (plank, modified press ups, tricep extensions, lunges and squats). She says to do this no more than 3 times a week and if I want to workout 5 days a week then I should be doing pilates or steady rate cardio e.g treadmill walking on alternate days. She also suggested 1500 cals is too low for the workouts I do (I have a new thread asking questions about cardio/strength and cals on the fitness and exercise message board) so I'm going to aim for 1800 and see what happens.

I only started this program on Thursday (it replaced two other programs, the first was purely cardio, the second was a mix of cardio and weight machines). It's too early to tell what will happen, but I'm hoping for alot of toning and weight loss.

I'm just starting out on MFP and if you need a pal to share progress or whatever feel free to add me as a friend

Good luck!

Tabata is definitely hard.

BOLO4Hagtha

I personally believe that cardio is the most important thing when trying to lose fat. Yes, weight lifting helps with burning fat too, but (and as Tony Horton says) you need to get rid of all that goop in order for that lean muscle to burn the fat more effectively.

I recently started HIIT on my elliptical and have seen a difference. I usually do one minutes ITs, at 5-8reps and with my warm up/cool down its about 15min. This starts off my workout. Good luck!

suziecue66

I added a new pic so that anyone commenting could see where I am coming from.
I have about 45 pounds to lose, 5ft 2in, 45 yrs old. My main goal is stripping the fat, whilst maintaining as much muscle as I can.
I will also be doing HIIT and body weight exercises from home, but want to know how to tackle my morning cardio most effectively.

Is cardio the most effective fat-burner? Should I do 30 min-1hr morning cardio - 6 days on my treadmill? Should I even do cardio?
(Apart from exercising the rest of my day is sedentary. My calories are 1200 - something to change I think).

Cardio is not needed at all to lose fat. A caloric deficit is needed, cardio will just allow you to eat more to have the same size caloric deficit. The best for fat loss with minimal lean muscle loss is a slight caloric deficit (250 cals/day, 0.5lb/week loss, this can be done through diet alone, or a combination of diet and exercise), combined with a heavy lifting strength training program.

Cardio is great for increasing endurance, strengthening the heart, but is not needed to lose weight/fat, and even a lot of cardio can lead to the loss of lean muscle, depending on how you are fueling your body.

I would like to lose about 45lbs (20kg) and if I lost 0.5lb per week it would take me 90 weeks to get to goal weight. I don't think I could stand it. I think in kilos and that would be about 200g. I always thought up to 1kg (2.2 lbs) per week was a good steady weight loss.

suziecue66

I personally believe that cardio is the most important thing when trying to lose fat. Yes, weight lifting helps with burning fat too, but (and as Tony Horton says) you need to get rid of all that goop in order for that lean muscle to burn the fat more effectively.

I recently started HIIT on my elliptical and have seen a difference. I usually do one minutes ITs, at 5-8reps and with my warm up/cool down its about 15min. This starts off my workout. Good luck!

Thanks for your comments. I have to look up Tony Horton as never heard of him.
I like doing HIIT too.
Edit - said a search Tony Horton - P90X

erickirb

I added a new pic so that anyone commenting could see where I am coming from.
I have about 45 pounds to lose, 5ft 2in, 45 yrs old. My main goal is stripping the fat, whilst maintaining as much muscle as I can.
I will also be doing HIIT and body weight exercises from home, but want to know how to tackle my morning cardio most effectively.

Is cardio the most effective fat-burner? Should I do 30 min-1hr morning cardio - 6 days on my treadmill? Should I even do cardio?
(Apart from exercising the rest of my day is sedentary. My calories are 1200 - something to change I think).

Cardio is not needed at all to lose fat. A caloric deficit is needed, cardio will just allow you to eat more to have the same size caloric deficit. The best for fat loss with minimal lean muscle loss is a slight caloric deficit (250 cals/day, 0.5lb/week loss, this can be done through diet alone, or a combination of diet and exercise), combined with a heavy lifting strength training program.

Cardio is great for increasing endurance, strengthening the heart, but is not needed to lose weight/fat, and even a lot of cardio can lead to the loss of lean muscle, depending on how you are fueling your body.

I would like to lose about 45lbs (20kg) and if I lost 0.5lb per week it would take me 90 weeks to get to goal weight. I don't think I could stand it. I think in kilos and that would be about 200g. I always thought up to 1kg (2.2 lbs) per week was a good steady weight loss.

In that case a loss of 1lb/week should work well. the 2lbs/week is good steady loss if you have a lot to lose. Here is a guide for setting weekly weight loss goals based on the amount you have to lose:
If you have 75+ lbs to lose 2 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 40-75 lbs to lose 1.5 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 15 -25 lbs to lose 0.5 to 1.0 lbs/week is ideal, and
If you have less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lbs/week is ideal.

Larger deficit will put you at risk for losing a large % of lean muscle as you lose fat.