Cardio? Weights? Which one should you do?

Healthymom207

Cardio? Weights? Which one should you do? Both, I say.

If you want maximum benefits and maximum results, well you need to do both. Cardio is great for endurance, burning calories and for fatloss. So many people tell me that they do a gillion sit-ups every night but they still have no abs. Well, if porky pig is sitting on your stomach you won't see abs. No amount of sit-ups are going to help you if you have fat sitting on top of them. Cardio will help burn the fat to reveal your abdominal muscles below. How much cardio? Well that depends on you, your schedule, your goals, your determination. I suggest a healthy amount of cardio is atleast 3 days a week for 30 minutes, try not to push more than 6 days though....your body does need a break.

Time and time again I see people eating a low calorie diet and then doing hours of cardio......cardio can burn alot of calories, but you can't starve your body if you want to see results. If you are on a low calorie diet of 1200 calories then you burn 1000 calories doing cardio (1200-1000=200) your only left with 200 calories for your body to survive on. Some people think that's great, they lose the weight fast.....wrong....in fact, you could put on weight. Eating less than 1200 calories a day can put your body into starvation mode, it will slow your metabolism and your fat loss. Your body will be screaming for food and fat, in return it will not expel any fat....it will hold onto it and turn the food you eat into fat. YIKES, right. So eat your exercise calories please for the love of God, quit starving yourself....just eat clean foods. Who doesn't want to eat more.....woohoo.....i love when i can eat more calories from exercising.

Then onto weights, oh weights, I love them heavy suckers. Weights are so beneficial in your weightloss goals. Adding muscle onto your body will not only speed up your metabolism, burn more calories, burn more fat.......it will burn more calories when your sleeping and when your sitting on your butt watching Real Housewives of the O.C.....yes, you can still watch Real Housewives. By adding muscle to your body you will see faster results, who doesn't want that.

"I started weight training but the scale isn't moving?" This is another popular complaint by so many. Most people say muscle weighs more than fat, they actually weigh the same......it's the size that is different. One pound of fat is larger in scale compared to one pound of muscle. It's like saying 1 candy bar = 100 skittles....they may weigh the same, but the skittles takes up more space. So to fix this scale dilemna you need to start measuring yourself. You may be losing fat, but gaining muscle. Take your measurements, weekly...monthly...what ever floats your boat.

The important thing with having a healthier life and healthier body is not to think of it as a diet. Make small changes, here and there....make a lifestyle change for the long run, not for a week. Yo-Yo dieting will get you no where fast, stick to consistency. You've got to be in it to win it.

bgomey

What is Starvation Mode?

We have been SO mislead and have completely misunderstood the science behind Starvation mode. When physical trainers or dieticians say it we automatically believe it because they are the "expert". But they are also just repeating what we have all somehow misunderstood and repeated to everyone we know who is on a diet. Lets take a real look at what Starvation Mode actually is.

Starvation mode as we know it is a myth. When we think of starvation mode, we think that when we skip a meal or go on a low calorie diet, our bodies go into "starvation mode" and start storing everything we eat as fat because it thinks it is starving, thus causing weight gain rather than weight loss. People in our society also have a very strange idea of what starving is. To them, starving can be as little as skipping a meal or even a snack. Actual starvation means cutting the total caloric intake to less than 50% of what the body requires per day for an extended period of time (meaning weeks and/or months). So skipping a meal or snack is nowhere near starvation.


Also, starvation mode doesn't cause weight gain, not even close. Research shows that at no point does the body stop burning body fat during fasting or even during extreme starvation until the research subject hits a rate of approximately 5% body fat. So, if we have body fat to burn, our bodies will not gain weight, but continue to burn body fat for fuel.

What does happen in starvation mode is your metabolic rate drops (after several weeks or months of less than 50% of your recommended daily caloric intake). Which could explain why there may be a misunderstanding that the body would gain weight because we are told that a slow metabolism means weight gain. However, the slow metabolic rate associated with starvation mode is also misunderstood as outlined in the below quote:

"Lyle McDonald explains it this way:

In general, it's true that metabolic rate tends to drop more with more excessive caloric deficits… But here's the thing: in no study I've ever seen has the drop in metabolic rate been sufficient to completely offset the caloric deficit. That is to say that cutting your calories to less than 50% of what the body needs per day leads to a reduction in the metabolic rate of 10%. Starvation mode you say. Well, yes. But you still have a 40% daily deficit."

This means that you are still so far under the amount of calories that you should be eating that you will certainly continue to lose weight and not gain it as we would be led to believe.


Thats not to say you telling people to eat more than 1200 calories is wrong, people should figure out what there Total Daily Energy Expenditure is (Calculation of calories burned through exercise and everyday life) and subtract about 500 calories from that and they will lose fat slowly with less risk of losing muscle mass with it. Having a calorie deficit greater than that will lose weight but could come at a cost to lean muscle mass.

Bastiencade

Time and time again I see people eating a low calorie diet and then doing hours of cardio......cardio can burn alot of calories, but you can't starve your body if you want to see results. If you are on a low calorie diet of 1200 calories then you burn 1000 calories doing cardio (1200-1000=200) your only left with 200 calories for your body to survive on. Some people think that's great, they lose the weight fast.....wrong....in fact, you could put on weight. Eating less than 1200 calories a day can put your body into starvation mode, it will slow your metabolism and your fat loss. Your body will be screaming for food and fat, in return it will not expel any fat....it will hold onto it and turn the food you eat into fat. YIKES, right. So eat your exercise calories please for the love of God, quit starving yourself....just eat clean foods. Who doesn't want to eat more.....woohoo.....i love when i can eat more calories from exercising.

I guess this just confuses me. How on earth would you gain weight? I can see for a short period of time, the body may or may not release any of it's current fat thinking it's starving, but there is no way that it would just continue to store fat if you're working out on top of that. It would use all of it's resources available, and that would include the stored fat.

Healthymom207

Time and time again I see people eating a low calorie diet and then doing hours of cardio......cardio can burn alot of calories, but you can't starve your body if you want to see results. If you are on a low calorie diet of 1200 calories then you burn 1000 calories doing cardio (1200-1000=200) your only left with 200 calories for your body to survive on. Some people think that's great, they lose the weight fast.....wrong....in fact, you could put on weight. Eating less than 1200 calories a day can put your body into starvation mode, it will slow your metabolism and your fat loss. Your body will be screaming for food and fat, in return it will not expel any fat....it will hold onto it and turn the food you eat into fat. YIKES, right. So eat your exercise calories please for the love of God, quit starving yourself....just eat clean foods. Who doesn't want to eat more.....woohoo.....i love when i can eat more calories from exercising.

I guess this just confuses me. How on earth would you gain weight? I can see for a short period of time, the body may or may not release any of it's current fat thinking it's starving, but there is no way that it would just continue to store fat if you're working out on top of that. It would use all of it's resources available, and that would include the stored fat.

Yo-Yo dieters have this problem, they jump onto the new fast diet bandwagon......they lower their calories, workout like crazy....whatever the fad is for that week or month. Then when they can't handle the ridiculous restrictions they give up and start eating again. Slowing down your metabolism by not eating an efficient amount of calories throughout the day can backfire on you when you start eating again (and sometimes people overeat because they were depriving themselves so badly). Your body could start storing your food as fat, because you have been depriving it. So alot of people gain back any weight they might have lost (some can be water weight too if you were restricting your water, you'll retain) and sometimes they gain more. Consistency is key. Do not deprive your body, fuel it with what it needs, figure out your daily expediture and go from there, lose weight the healthy way.

Healthymom207

What is Starvation Mode?

We have been SO mislead and have completely misunderstood the science behind Starvation mode. When physical trainers or dieticians say it we automatically believe it because they are the "expert". But they are also just repeating what we have all somehow misunderstood and repeated to everyone we know who is on a diet. Lets take a real look at what Starvation Mode actually is.

Starvation mode as we know it is a myth. When we think of starvation mode, we think that when we skip a meal or go on a low calorie diet, our bodies go into "starvation mode" and start storing everything we eat as fat because it thinks it is starving, thus causing weight gain rather than weight loss. People in our society also have a very strange idea of what starving is. To them, starving can be as little as skipping a meal or even a snack. Actual starvation means cutting the total caloric intake to less than 50% of what the body requires per day for an extended period of time (meaning weeks and/or months). So skipping a meal or snack is nowhere near starvation.


Also, starvation mode doesn't cause weight gain, not even close. Research shows that at no point does the body stop burning body fat during fasting or even during extreme starvation until the research subject hits a rate of approximately 5% body fat. So, if we have body fat to burn, our bodies will not gain weight, but continue to burn body fat for fuel.

What does happen in starvation mode is your metabolic rate drops (after several weeks or months of less than 50% of your recommended daily caloric intake). Which could explain why there may be a misunderstanding that the body would gain weight because we are told that a slow metabolism means weight gain. However, the slow metabolic rate associated with starvation mode is also misunderstood as outlined in the below quote:

"Lyle McDonald explains it this way:

In general, it's true that metabolic rate tends to drop more with more excessive caloric deficits… But here's the thing: in no study I've ever seen has the drop in metabolic rate been sufficient to completely offset the caloric deficit. That is to say that cutting your calories to less than 50% of what the body needs per day leads to a reduction in the metabolic rate of 10%. Starvation mode you say. Well, yes. But you still have a 40% daily deficit."

This means that you are still so far under the amount of calories that you should be eating that you will certainly continue to lose weight and not gain it as we would be led to believe.


Thats not to say you telling people to eat more than 1200 calories is wrong, people should figure out what there Total Daily Energy Expenditure is (Calculation of calories burned through exercise and everyday life) and subtract about 500 calories from that and they will lose fat slowly with less risk of losing muscle mass with it. Having a calorie deficit greater than that will lose weight but could come at a cost to lean muscle mass.

I hear what your saying, but my example was someone cutting their calorie intake to 200 a day after exercising...anyone who thinks this isn't starving your body of adequate nutrition is crazy. I agree your not killing yourself if you eat under your daily calories every once in a while, but it is not exactly 100% healthy if you do it all the time.......have you ever looked at an anorexic person....do you think their healthy.....can you really say starvation mode is a myth after seeing someone like that......ask the doctors who treat people like that.....I'm sure starvation mode is very much a reality in the patients they treat?