Cardio and calories.

jonski1968

Where do i start...Of late i`ve been hammering the treadmill, so much so that i`m having to try and eat another 1000/1500 cals a day on top of the cals i`m already allocated.

This in itself is a struggle, not to mention the cost of eating a 1/3 amount again.

I hit a plateau for around 4 weeks and scratched my head as to why.

I thought it must be because i`m almost at target weight and am having to work so much harder to hit the same cals burnt while doing cardio.

Last week and this week, i decided to give the cardio a rest, only doing 45 mins a day instead of 90+ mins a day, and managed to drop weight over both weeks, while still eating my regular cals plus only 20% of what i`m supposedly burning.

So at what point does cardio become too much cardio?

YogaNikki

What kind of cardio were you doing at 90+ min a day? I can tell you, without looking at any other part of your regimen, 90+ a day is too much. Whether we like it or not, your body does need rest. Your muscles need recovery time. I only log that much cardio when I'm running my 1/2 marathons..... It looks like giving your body rest was exactly what it was asking for.

No matter what your weight loss goal is, you CAN have too much of a good thing.

jonski1968

Treadmill mostly...90+ can sometimes turn into 180+...If i`m feeling in the mood...

So are you saying i should cardio 1 day on /1 day off? Or 5 on and 2 off..?

YogaNikki

I typically run 5 days out of the week, but I stagger my mileage. I definitely know what you mean about staying at it if you feel good, but if you're not training for an Iron Man and just working to lose weight, I would stay in the 45-60 min range, and take two days off. You can actually start eating into your muscles if you're over doing it. Are you weight training?

desireedare

Definitely should be incorporating weight training into your workout regimen. Weight training burns more calories during and AFTER exercise than straight cardio does!

http://tcsnapfitness.wordpress.com/2012/03/09/epoc-excess-post-exercise-oxygen-consum/

this blog post explains EPOC and why this is true!

bcattoes

What kind of cardio were you doing at 90+ min a day? I can tell you, without looking at any other part of your regimen, 90+ a day is too much. Whether we like it or not, your body does need rest. Your muscles need recovery time. I only log that much cardio when I'm running my 1/2 marathons..... It looks like giving your body rest was exactly what it was asking for.

No matter what your weight loss goal is, you CAN have too much of a good thing.

I disagree with some of this. 90 or even 180 min of cardio a day is not necessarily a bad thing. But 90-180 min of aerobic exercise at one time can be bad, depending on the intensity and type of exercise.

Our bodies are designed to move and move often. Doing aerobic (cardio) exercise several times throughout the day is good for us.

jonski1968

I typically run 5 days out of the week, but I stagger my mileage. I definitely know what you mean about staying at it if you feel good, but if you're not training for an Iron Man and just working to lose weight, I would stay in the 45-60 min range, and take two days off. You can actually start eating into your muscles if you're over doing it. Are you weight training?

Yepp i lift a couple of days a week...

jonski1968

What kind of cardio were you doing at 90+ min a day? I can tell you, without looking at any other part of your regimen, 90+ a day is too much. Whether we like it or not, your body does need rest. Your muscles need recovery time. I only log that much cardio when I'm running my 1/2 marathons..... It looks like giving your body rest was exactly what it was asking for.

No matter what your weight loss goal is, you CAN have too much of a good thing.

I disagree with some of this. 90 or even 180 min of cardio a day is not necessarily a bad thing. But 90-180 min of aerobic exercise at one time can be bad, depending on the intensity and type of exercise.

Our bodies are designed to move and move often. Doing aerobic (cardio) exercise several times throughout the day is good for us.

Yeah thats what i do on a good day. I`ll do a 45, have a break for 20 mins, then do another 45, eat...then afternoon i might do the same again...

secretlobster

If you're doing that much cardio, I hope it's because you just really enjoy running on a treadmill, not because you think it's going to improve your health.

htmlgirl

90 is not too much... maybe if done every single day, but if I'm running 10K, that takes me about <70 mins, with a 5 min warmup, and then I walk til I hit 99 mins (treadmill stops me), not really too much.

Maybe you were overestimating your calorie burn? You could try doing the same amount and only eating some of the calories back. I usually eat only a couple hundred of exercise calories if I do.

secretlobster

90 is not too much... maybe if done every single day, but if I'm running 10K, that takes me about <70 mins, with a 5 min warmup, and then I walk til I hit 99 mins (treadmill stops me), not really too much.

If I had a nickel for all of the "it's totally fine to do it because *I* do it!" responses I've seen on MFP over the years... I'd have a lot of nickels

MinnesotaManimal

I just cruised your diary and it appears that you are only consuming a total of around 2,000 calories a day and burning 1,000 or more most days. I don't think your eating enough. Are you gaining strength on your weight lifting? I did the same thing early on and am still working on changing my habbits. Running 3 days a week this spring, I was losing weight consuming 2500 on rest days and 3-5,000 on my run days ( more on my long run day, less on normal run days) Have you calculated your TDEE? I think you might be under estimating your level of physical activity, or maybe your still trying to lose 2+ lbs a week?

jonski1968

90 is not too much... maybe if done every single day, but if I'm running 10K, that takes me about <70 mins, with a 5 min warmup, and then I walk til I hit 99 mins (treadmill stops me), not really too much.

Maybe you were overestimating your calorie burn? You could try doing the same amount and only eating some of the calories back. I usually eat only a couple hundred of exercise calories if I do.

I don`t go off my fitbit calorie burn, only from my HRM..

jonski1968

I just cruised your diary and it appears that you are only consuming a total of around 2,000 calories a day and burning 1,000 or more most days. I don't think your eating enough. Are you gaining strength on your weight lifting? I did the same thing early on and am still working on changing my habbits. Running 3 days a week this spring, I was losing weight consuming 2500 on rest days and 3-5,000 on my run days ( more on my long run day, less on normal run days) Have you calculated your TDEE? I think you might be under estimating your level of physical activity, or maybe your still trying to lose 2+ lbs a week?

Yeah that seems to be the problem, my monthly budget is struggling with eating so much back, so maybe i`m stalling on the loss...Its fat i want to lose now, not much more weight, 80 lbs down already now want to concentrate on purely fat loss.

secretlobster

Yeah that seems to be the problem, my monthly budget is struggling with eating so much back, so maybe i`m stalling on the loss...Its fat i want to lose now, not much more weight, 80 lbs down already now want to concentrate on purely fat loss.

This is why I said I hope you're doing that much cardio just because you enjoy it... Because unless you have a lot of weight to lose, tons of cardio is not, by itself, going to cause you to drop fat. If you can do even half the amount of cardio that's in your regime now, and replace most if not ALL of it with strength training, then you're going to see results that you are not seeing now because you're not eating enough to make the tons of cardio worth doing. You really don't need, or want, to be at a great caloric deficit. If you are a runner that's one thing but I think you're hurting your success by being on a treadmill for that long if your eating isn't in line with your activity level

I mean you're kind of proving this to yourself right now... You can do half the cardio, eat more, and lose fat. No need to run yourself into the ground.

MinnesotaManimal

Reducing your cardio would help your food budget :-) and your fat loss. With my body anyways, too much of a caloric deficit was causing my body to hold onto fat and not provide the energy to make strength gains. Feel free to add me and we can battle the beast together.

jonski1968

[/quote]

This is why I said I hope you're doing that much cardio just because you enjoy it... Because unless you have a lot of weight to lose, tons of cardio is not, by itself, going to cause you to drop fat. If you can do even half the amount of cardio that's in your regime now, and replace most if not ALL of it with strength training, then you're going to see results that you are not seeing now because you're not eating enough to make the tons of cardio worth doing. You really don't need, or want, to be at a great caloric deficit. If you are a runner that's one thing but I think you're hurting your success by being on a treadmill for that long if your eating isn't in line with your activity level

I mean you're kind of proving this to yourself right now... You can do half the cardio, eat more, and lose fat. No need to run yourself into the ground.
[/quote]

Its not a case of loving it...Its just with me its all or nothing..I`m a lazy person normally and would hate to stop doing what i`ve took so long to get used to..But i hear what your saying...:bigsmile:

secretlobster

I totally hear you. I went from "lazy mf'er" to "put 150% energy into everything", eating too few calories and doing way too much cardio. It didn't cause me to lose fat, but it did cause me to lose some sanity.

YogaNikki

What kind of cardio were you doing at 90+ min a day? I can tell you, without looking at any other part of your regimen, 90+ a day is too much. Whether we like it or not, your body does need rest. Your muscles need recovery time. I only log that much cardio when I'm running my 1/2 marathons..... It looks like giving your body rest was exactly what it was asking for.

No matter what your weight loss goal is, you CAN have too much of a good thing.

I disagree with some of this. 90 or even 180 min of cardio a day is not necessarily a bad thing. But 90-180 min of aerobic exercise at one time can be bad, depending on the intensity and type of exercise.

Our bodies are designed to move and move often. Doing aerobic (cardio) exercise several times throughout the day is good for us.

Cardio throughout the day is good. 90+ min everyday, as he said he had been doing, isn't necessarily good, which is why he could have been seeing a plateau. Our bodies also need rest.