Cardio makes you fat: "Women: Running into Trouble"

mmapags

I have to laugh when somebody still has the sheer audacity to continue returning here to defend this article and to insult the intelligence of people who do understand physiology and at the same time train with lots of cardio. Also, if the contents of this article in any way demonstrate your basic understanding of physiology then I encourage you to leave this forum, as you have threatened to do. The statements below, quoted from the article are simply wrong. They are beyond wrong and are the exact opposite of truth. If you believe these things then you are not helping anybody here but rather filling those that do come here for help with a bunch of nonsense.

Think about it this way: the body is a responsive, adaptive machine evolved for survival. If running on a regular basis, the body senses excessive energy expenditure and adjusts to compensate. Remember, no matter what dreamy nonsense we invent about how we hope the body works, its endgame is always survival. Start wasting energy running and the body reacts by slowing the metabolism to conserve energy.

Yeah, that’s the ticket. If we exercise the body slows the metabolism. So if we want to speed up the metabolism we should just stay in bed all day.

Training at a consistently plus-65 percent heart rate adapts the body to save as much body fat as possible.

Again, as I said earlier this statement is simply stupid. The body burns fat at all intensities. It burns less a percentage of fat at a higher intensity. It does not train itself to store more fat. Even a moderately sized person with 10% bodyfat has around 15 lbs of fat on their body. That’s enough to fuel the body for over 500 miles running even if they burned exclusively fat.

That’s right, after regular training, fat cells stop releasing fat during moderate-intensity activities like they once did. . . . To this end, the body even sets into motion a series of reactions that make it difficult for muscle to burn fat at all.

So, according to the author the end result of extensive endurance training is that the body stops burning fat for energy and begins to burn only carbohydrates and protein? Trying to respond to a whopper like this is like trying to tell a flat earther that the world is round.

No more muscle because too much steady-state cardio triggers the loss of muscle.

As Jynus explained it is not cardio that triggers the loss of muscle (whatever that means to the author). It is not using a muscle that causes it to atrophy. If you have been lifting weights and stop lifting them to do only cardio your muscle size and strength will decrease. If you have been lifting weights and stop lifting them to do nothing your muscle size and strength will decrease. Can anybody deduce what those last two sentences have in common?

If you have not been lifting weights and start doing cardio your muscle size and strength will not decrease unless your diet is overly restrictive and you are starving yourself. If you have not been lifting weights and do not do any cardio your muscle size and strength will not decrease unless your diet is overly restrictive and you are starving yourself. Can anybody deduce what those last two sentences have in common?

Oh yeah — say good bye to bone density too

Another profoundly ignorant statement from the author. Any exercise you do will increase bone density in the part of the body being loaded assuming one is not starving themselves at the same time.

The only rational response to this article can be summed up in this quote.
Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Again, this post is not directed at everyone that defends weight lifting in a fitness program. Resistance training is good. This post is directed at the one or two that continually come back here to insult people on endurance training programs by attempting to defend the idiotic ideas written in the article.

Maybe it's a matter of interpretation of some of the posts but honestly Scott, I don't see anyone defending this article in recent posts. I pretty much agree with all you said above. What I don't really get is the nastiness and the defensiveness coming specifically from Meerkat and Di312. You or I or anyone can disagree about ideas but the personal attacks and way over the top responses are just plain uncalled for. As far as what I can read, pretty much the concensus is that the article is BS.
"No one is saying tons of cardio will make you gain weight. No one is saying don't run. No one is saying cardio doesn't have some health benefits." From DavPul's post. Now he believes that you will look better if your focus is strength training. Ok, so that's his opinion. He didn't insult anyone. Just stated his opinion and never said the article was valid. I just don't get the high emotional response level from some posters. Maybe a little maturity might be in order

Where did I say ANYTHING that has been nasty?

quote me.

If you can't read your own posts and see it I can't help you.

SVallatini

Ok. well let's see if I can get some more people wound up about this particular post. I was told if you want to LOOK GOOD on the outside, then you should just strength train, if you want to LOOK GOOD on the inside and outside, then cardio and strength training are the perfect combo for that. I would like to think that most of us would want to achieve both!

Di3012

If you can't read your own posts and see it I can't help you.

I repeat - QUOTE ME. You can't can you lol

MoreBean13

Well lets see, I have hypothyroidism and my endo actually told me to DO cardio because I was lifting too much and causing my body to freak out. People with hypothyroid can not to high intensity workouts so this whole thing is BS. Every doc out there will tell you to do weight training AND cardio

I swore to myself I wasn't going to say anything else on this thread, BUT.....(assuming to=do and there's not some other massive typo obscuring your point) the bolded statement is completely unfounded. I think you may have misinterpreted why the doctor told you to do cardio- or said Dr didn't explain themselves clearly. I believe that your doctor told you to do cardio- because cardio is good for people with hypothyroid, and not because it in any way will help or cure thyroid disease, but because hypothyroid suppresses our BMR and makes us burn less calories that the average healthy Jane Doe, and cardio burns calories, allowing people with hypothyroid to eat more calories and live a higher quality of life. I do what I would consider high intensity workouts a LOT, and have been losing weight slowly and never felt better- I run 10 or 11 miles once a week, a speed workout once a week for about 5k and an in-between mileage run, in the 6-8 mile range. I also lift heavy 2-3 times a week, and do cross training cardio on lifting days. I assure you, n=1, people with hypothyroid can do all kinds of high intensity stuff. And weight lifting does not make your body freak out- I don't know how to address that statement because I have no idea what it means.

kaotik26

Well lets see, I have hypothyroidism and my endo actually told me to DO cardio because I was lifting too much and causing my body to freak out. People with hypothyroid can not to high intensity workouts so this whole thing is BS. Every doc out there will tell you to do weight training AND cardio

I swore to myself I wasn't going to say anything else on this thread, BUT.....(assuming to=do and there's not some other massive typo obscuring your point) the bolded statement is completely unfounded. I think you may have misinterpreted why the doctor told you to do cardio- or said Dr didn't explain themselves clearly. I believe that your doctor told you to do cardio- because cardio is good for people with hypothyroid, and not because it in any way will help or cure thyroid disease, but because hypothyroid suppresses our BMR and makes us burn less calories that the average healthy Jane Doe, and cardio burns calories, allowing people with hypothyroid to eat more calories and live a higher quality of life. I do what I would consider high intensity workouts a LOT, and have been losing weight slowly and never felt better- I run 10 or 11 miles once a week, a speed workout once a week for about 5k and an in-between mileage run, in the 6-8 mile range. I also lift heavy 2-3 times a week, and do cross training cardio on lifting days. I assure you, n=1, people with hypothyroid can do all kinds of high intensity stuff. And weight lifting does not make your body freak out- I don't know how to address that statement because I have no idea what it means.

I agree, I have NEVER been told not to do any sort of exercise due to my hypothyroidism.

mmapags

If you can't read your own posts and see it I can't help you.

I repeat - QUOTE ME. You can't can you lol

With all due respect, I don't take orders from you. It's so great when people like you make my point for me with thier repeated posts.

scottb81

hey scott. I'll snip the essay you wrote to save space. . . .

I saw another study in a book once where they took a group of people in a prison (controlled environment) and fed them all a very high calorie diet. Some gained a whole lot of weight and some gained very little. They did it the other way also by restricting calories. Some lost a lot easily and some did not.

This mirrors my own experience to an extent. A couple of times I have spent several years eating what ever I wanted, much of it from the candy and chip machine, drinking four or five beers a night, and doing absolutely no exercise. On both these occasions I gain weight but only up to a point. I get to somewhere between 205 and 215 fairly quickly and stop gaining. I'm not sure if I just stop absorbing the calories or if I subconciously start eating less. I believe it is the former because I can put away a large amount of food and am very good at being sedentary when I put my mind to it.

So I agree that there is more going on than simple calories in vs. calories out and that for undetermined reasons different people react differently to exercise. One reason I like to run instead of lift weights is because I am fairly good at running when I work at it but not so good in the gym. It used to be somewhat disheartening to spend some months working my way up to a 225 bench press when other guys could do 300+ in less time. The only thing I was somewhat successful at was deadlifting I suppose because it relies more on lower body and back than upper body and maybe also because nobody else was doing it at the time. So, body structure, muscle composition, and probably some other factors all weigh in on how much and how quickly each individual responds to both diet and various types of exercise. [The counterargument is that If I put as much effort in the gym as I do in running I might be more successful there. Granted.]

On the article itself: If the author had recrafted his argument to highlight the dangers of working yourself into a state of overtraining then he would have hit the mark. The woman concerned, with a disrupted endocrine system, was showing the symptoms. But he missed the mark by attacking cardio itself and blamed the mode of exercise rather than placing the blame on the state of overtraining where it belonged. I don't know what kind of cardio she was doing but the article implied treadmill type stuff for 20+ hours a week. Even olympic level athletes do not normally train that much, particularly for any extended period of time. She was a recipe for disaster not because of the exercise mode but because of an insane program with too much exercise and no recovery. If she had gone into the gym to lift weights for 20 hours a week I expect we could have generated a similar result.

pamelak5

Well lets see, I have hypothyroidism and my endo actually told me to DO cardio because I was lifting too much and causing my body to freak out. People with hypothyroid can not to high intensity workouts so this whole thing is BS. Every doc out there will tell you to do weight training AND cardio

I swore to myself I wasn't going to say anything else on this thread, BUT.....(assuming to=do and there's not some other massive typo obscuring your point) the bolded statement is completely unfounded. I think you may have misinterpreted why the doctor told you to do cardio- or said Dr didn't explain themselves clearly. I believe that your doctor told you to do cardio- because cardio is good for people with hypothyroid, and not because it in any way will help or cure thyroid disease, but because hypothyroid suppresses our BMR and makes us burn less calories that the average healthy Jane Doe, and cardio burns calories, allowing people with hypothyroid to eat more calories and live a higher quality of life. I do what I would consider high intensity workouts a LOT, and have been losing weight slowly and never felt better- I run 10 or 11 miles once a week, a speed workout once a week for about 5k and an in-between mileage run, in the 6-8 mile range. I also lift heavy 2-3 times a week, and do cross training cardio on lifting days. I assure you, n=1, people with hypothyroid can do all kinds of high intensity stuff. And weight lifting does not make your body freak out- I don't know how to address that statement because I have no idea what it means.

I agree, I have NEVER been told not to do any sort of exercise due to my hypothyroidism.

Same here. i have been hypothyroid for ten years and have done and enjoyed lots of things, from training for long races, heavy lifting, circuits, intervals...I do think that sometimes untreated hypothyroidism can make it harder to work out, since you are sluggish and exhausted.

Di3012

If you can't read your own posts and see it I can't help you.

I repeat - QUOTE ME. You can't can you lol

With all due respect, I don't take orders from you. It's so great when people like you make my point for me with thier repeated posts.

I am not giving orders I am asking you to walk your talk and quote me, you cannot because I did not do what you said lol.

cobaltis

Wow has this thread run amuck!

skinnnyfat123

hey scott. I'll snip the essay you wrote to save space. . . .

I saw another study in a book once where they took a group of people in a prison (controlled environment) and fed them all a very high calorie diet. Some gained a whole lot of weight and some gained very little. They did it the other way also by restricting calories. Some lost a lot easily and some did not.

This is actually very true and the experiment has been repeated by different people, some peoples metabolism speeds up in response to food and can actually grow muscle just by upping calories. Others will find that surplus will cause a big increase in fat storage. People theorise that this is linked to the fact that you keep roughly the same number of fat cells your whole life(unless you eat like a glutton at which point your adipose cells reach a max size then split). The problem with this is that even if you shrink those cells they stay around waiting to store up fat again.
I firmly believe that the number one cause of people being moderately overweight is genetics but I rarely mention is as those who find it easy to lose weight or those that had a good metabolism in the first place but ruined it by **** ba adnd NO exercise will always argue the point. I see the proof every day on people I know who go straight from the GYM to the pub on the way home and sink three pints.

cyclerjenn

From my personal experience as a cyclist and a runner, I started to become soft when I stopped doing as much cardio as I did before. Now the weight is falling off, with changes to my measurements, because I am finally back on my routine. Yes I do lift weights at least twice a week.

wackyfunster

There was a fair bit of give and take sarcasm between several individual posters for the last several days. It wasn't until today that this was generalized to say, "Everyone that doesn't agree with my opinion and training methods is 50 lbs overweight."

There is a big difference between 'tend to', which is what I said, and EVERYONE. Just saying.

crisanderson27

Ok, I can see that. How about some of Meerkat's snide and condescending remarks? Your take on those?

There was a fair bit of give and take sarcasm between several individual posters for the last several days. It wasn't until today that this was generalized to say, "Everyone that doesn't agree with my opinion and training methods is 50 lbs overweight."

There is a big difference between 'tend to', which is what I said, and EVERYONE, which is what you said I said. Talk about fueling the fire!

It's a lost cause brother...let it burn.

MoreBean13

I have an important question- what fitness routine can I use to get taller?

wackyfunster

I have an important question- what fitness routine can I use to get taller?

+1

crisanderson27

I have an important question- what fitness routine can I use to get taller?

+1

Good Lord, add me in here. If you runners can answer that...I'll be impressed.

BrianSharpe

I have an important question- what fitness routine can I use to get taller?

Inquiring minds want to know........

victoria4321

But obviously you're right. Looking at my own progress, I'm a total weightloss write off. I've still got some left to lose, and consequently I have no experience at all in weight management, and must defer to those young blokes who've lost a couple of pounds but don't have much left to lose....

In all honesty it is easier to lose if you're 100+ lbs from normal. You can't claim much experience in weight management if you got that bad in the first place. Even if there is some sort of illness or metabolic condition, you still have to over eat a great deal for quite some time. While you can give decent advice to someone with a lot to lose, I can't see your experience being helpful to a healthy person trying to lean out or get fit.

How dare you speak to somebody like that, I think you are completely and utterly out of order!!!

I cannot see YOUR experience being helpful to somebody who has a lot to lose to be honest and your attitude stinks. I suggest you look carefully at your interaction with others before you even speak to them.

Good God, what the hell is going on here!!!!!!!!!!!

Its very simple. It takes more food to maintain 300lbs of body mass. Just eating at the same calorie amount as someone smaller will cause weight loss. It was easier for me to lose weight 30lbs ago as well. I'm talking in a purely physiological sense. I'm not sure what kind of emotional problems are at stake and that wasn't the concern.


And what Kara said.

This is NOT the issue or what was being discussed. YOU moved it into that area and told someone how, because they lad lost a lot of weight and should not have got to that weight in the first place, they were not really qualified to advise others.

Don't try to tell me about calorie deficits either, because that is taking the attention away from what is really going on here.

I don't get why you're getting so upset over me stating the obvious. I still stand by what I say. I would prefer to take advice from someone with actual experience or who is already at the goal I'd like to attain. Certain things it doesn't matter, but with health/lifestyle advice I wouldn't take that kind of advice from someone who can't follow it or hasn't lived it long enough.

Its pretty well known that the large majority of people who lose weight gain it back. Even people counting calories and on healthy diets. If I wanted to take diet advice from someone it would be someone who either got to a healthy, lean, and fit weight and maintained it for years or someone who has always been healthy their whole life.

scottb81

There was a fair bit of give and take sarcasm between several individual posters for the last several days. It wasn't until today that this was generalized to say, "Everyone that doesn't agree with my opinion and training methods is 50 lbs overweight."

There is a big difference between 'tend to', which is what I said, and EVERYONE. Just saying.

Peace.

nuclearbanana

Hey, guys, instead of speculation and biased interpretation of surroundings, are there any scientific journals or studies you could link to that would support or refute either idea? :x

scottb81

The book Lore of Ruuning by Dr. Timothy Noakes is full of physiological descriptions and thoroughly linked to cited studies.

aimforhealthy

What do you all think of interval running? Those of you who think running is problematic and even harmful (especially for women), do you think it's the same with interval training? Just curious, as that's all I do on the treadmill.

victoria4321

What do you all think of interval running? Those of you who think running is problematic and even harmful (especially for women), do you think it's the same with interval training? Just curious, as that's all I do on the treadmill.

Why would it be harmful to women?

aimforhealthy

What do you all think of interval running? Those of you who think running is problematic and even harmful (especially for women), do you think it's the same with interval training? Just curious, as that's all I do on the treadmill.

Why would it be harmful to women?

That's what the article that scottb81 linked to is claiming. This thread is a continuation of that discussion.

victoria4321

What do you all think of interval running? Those of you who think running is problematic and even harmful (especially for women), do you think it's the same with interval training? Just curious, as that's all I do on the treadmill.

Why would it be harmful to women?

That's what the article that scottb81 linked to is claiming. This thread is a continuation of that discussion.

tl;dr. I skipped over that post. Nevermind

MoreBean13

What do you all think of interval running? Those of you who think running is problematic and even harmful (especially for women), do you think it's the same with interval training? Just curious, as that's all I do on the treadmill.

Intervals are great, for lots of reasons. Walk/jog intervals can help you build endurance. Speed intervals help you build speed (and endurance). HIIT gets anaerobic and can mimic some of the effects of weight lifting. HIIT though, if done properly, requires the same type of rest time as lifting and can't be done too often, so if you intend to progress at running as a sport, HIIT can't be the basis for your training.
My opinion is everyone should be doing intervals- new runners should walk/jog to develop endurance, and there comes a distance in marathon training when walk/jog intervals are really useful to avoid "hitting the wall". Intermediate runners should use intervals to work on speed and stamina. Advanced runners know what they need to do.
Anyone can incorporate HIIT but 1 or 2 times a week max, with a base mileage running program.

crisanderson27

20+ pages...

SMH...

mmapags

What do you all think of interval running? Those of you who think running is problematic and even harmful (especially for women), do you think it's the same with interval training? Just curious, as that's all I do on the treadmill.

Intervals are great, for lots of reasons. Walk/jog intervals can help you build endurance. Speed intervals help you build speed (and endurance). HIIT gets anaerobic and can mimic some of the effects of weight lifting. HIIT though, if done properly, requires the same type of rest time as lifting and can't be done too often, so if you intend to progress at running as a sport, HIIT can't be the basis for your training.
My opinion is everyone should be doing intervals- new runners should walk/jog to develop endurance, and there comes a distance in marathon training when walk/jog intervals are really useful to avoid "hitting the wall". Intermediate runners should use intervals to work on speed and stamina. Advanced runners know what they need to do.
Anyone can incorporate HIIT but 1 or 2 times a week max, with a base mileage running program.

Excellent info from MoreBean!

MoreBean13

And I'm still waiting for how to gain height. I may have been too specific asking for a fitness program. I'm open to supplements to get tall too.