ARTICLE: Your Cardio Routine Is Making You Fat

Mines not so im good

*checks my butt in the mirror, looks at a "before" picture*


I'm good. Thanks.

I read this article, and I couldn't help but laugh.

I'm fairly certain that my cardio routine isn't making me fat. Doing the opposite.

I also liked the about the author part. He has a degree, but not in health science or anything related because it would state as much. It's probably in business, or english, or something. But he has a degree, and he lost weight. So he's an expert on exercise and how the body works, apparently.

"There truly is only one reason to exercise: To increase your metabolism in order to burn more calories 24 hours a day, seven days a week. What is the only style of exercise that accomplishes that goal? Strength training. Increasing your metabolism through strength training is the key to successful, permanent weight loss."

This is bullcrap.

There are MANY reasons to exercise, depends on the individual, and one of the BIGGEST reasons to do it is actually for the cardiovascular benefits related to your heart, lungs, and overall circulatory system. The increase in the efficiency of blood circulation is a HUGE contributor to decrease in many age-related diseases, which have NOTHING to do with metabolism and burning more calories.

Really, I hate articles like this. While I appreciate the mentality encouraging people, especially women, to participate in more vigorous activities that encourage muscle development, the idea that you should just stop doing cardio because it's now "evil" is a fad-related mentality, and is total bullcrap.

The BEST approach to working out is to find a balance. Yes, you need some cross-training with resistance, because it helps to maintain muscle mass, which contributes to decreasing bone density loss over time. But you also need to have cardio workouts where your heart and lungs have to work past their normal level of comfort, because it increases the overall efficiency of your blood system, encouraging your heart and muscles to use oxygen more efficiently, which connects EVERYTHING else and impacts every other organ system in your body, not just your skeletal muscles. Sustained cardio, like long-distance running, actually encourages your overall system to be much more efficient with what it uses, and combining high-intensity training, weights, and sustained effort training is a great way to be a balanced athlete overall, because it keeps your body at balanced level of fitness.

Find a balance. Balance is great. Articles like that encouraging a lack of balance suck.

End of rant.

I think that anyone that makes a broad statement like that is flat out wrong. He does make some good points, but ppl can get injured with weights and doing interval training. And the exercise reward eating can come from any form of exercise really. I say do whatever works for you.

Well I thought it was all cardio too, as a means to lose weight until I found out its more muscle training. I was wondering why I still lost all that weight before... it's because I used biggest loser dvds and they combine the two. So if your scared or in doubt, refer to them and do not fear.

Funny.. I lost 21 lbs doing cardio ... and I'm amazed those Olympic athletes running the marathons don't weigh a ton...

"Your Posture: Do you really want the rounded shoulder, chin jutting alignment of a runner, stair stepper or spin fanatic?"

This - coupled with other articles about weight training for women

Women, do you want to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger?

Both judgemental articles based on an opinion that worked for one person doing one type of thing.
While I'm aware of how incredibly difficult the latter is to achieve for women - I just want to say, what if the answer is yes, to either question? Does that make the reader bad, and feel ashamed for their goals?
That's not right either.

I know a lot of people have said this, but I agree with them. Finding a balance is pretty much a good thing, but if you don't want to do cardio, don't do it.. same for strength.

Lost me at "there's only one reason to exercise."

just some idiot guy on Yahoo trying to sell his latest weight loss scam book focused (not surprisingly) on avoiding cardio. the article is rife with false premises, silly assumptions, and broscience.

oh yeah, the guy's credentials??? ...he has an MBA from Wharton.

crap article on Yahoo is crap article.

:laugh:

Just in defense of the ridiculous title: in publishing you rarely get to choose your own titles for articles. Any article I've ever published in a newspaper or magazine has had a title written by the editors to grab reader's attention. Usually a play on words, something eyecatching, or ..a play on words (i swear to be an editor you have to love puns more than life itself)

So when I saw the title I was like "hopefully this was just to catch my eye and he won't actually talk about cardio being secretly the reason people gain weight"

oh wait. yes, yes he did. It ends up being an article with a number of valid points as mixed up with a bunch of baloney.

"There truly is only one reason to exercise: To increase your metabolism in order to burn more calories 24 hours a day, seven days a week. What is the only style of exercise that accomplishes that goal? Strength training. Increasing your metabolism through strength training is the key to successful, permanent weight loss."

This is bullcrap.

There are MANY reasons to exercise, depends on the individual, and one of the BIGGEST reasons to do it is actually for the cardiovascular benefits related to your heart, lungs, and overall circulatory system. The increase in the efficiency of blood circulation is a HUGE contributor to decrease in many age-related diseases, which have NOTHING to do with metabolism and burning more calories.

Really, I hate articles like this. While I appreciate the mentality encouraging people, especially women, to participate in more vigorous activities that encourage muscle development, the idea that you should just stop doing cardio because it's now "evil" is a fad-related mentality, and is total bullcrap.

The BEST approach to working out is to find a balance. Yes, you need some cross-training with resistance, because it helps to maintain muscle mass, which contributes to decreasing bone density loss over time. But you also need to have cardio workouts where your heart and lungs have to work past their normal level of comfort, because it increases the overall efficiency of your blood system, encouraging your heart and muscles to use oxygen more efficiently, which connects EVERYTHING else and impacts every other organ system in your body, not just your skeletal muscles. Sustained cardio, like long-distance running, actually encourages your overall system to be much more efficient with what it uses, and combining high-intensity training, weights, and sustained effort training is a great way to be a balanced athlete overall, because it keeps your body at balanced level of fitness.

Find a balance. Balance is great. Articles like that encouraging a lack of balance suck.

End of rant.

I think that both cardio and strength training is the best way to go.

^^^THIS^^^

Find your balance, but balance is the key. For some it's more cardio with a lighter strength training routine, for others it's the opposite.

Balance between the two keeps all parts of your body working, and getting stronger - including the heart and lungs.

"There truly is only one reason to exercise: To increase your metabolism in order to burn more calories 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

Anyone that considers themselves an expert should know that increasing metabolism is the least important reason to exercise. To call it the only reason makes me want to stop reading...

"[...] a classic diet coupled with cardiovascular exercise will result in weight loss, but it will come at a cost as 60% of the weight loss will be fat (that's good!) while the remaining 40% will come from muscle (that's really, really bad!)."

Bull****. 99-100% of my weight loss between December 2012 and April 2013 (next Bod Pod scan in a couple of weeks) has been from fat mass alone, and in that time I only lifted weights twice in those 5 months compared to increasing my walking distance from 12 miles per week to 35 miles per week (end of May, 50 miles per week before switching to C25K and weight training, no data to say what effect that change in routine has had).

Let's see... cardio... RHR has dropped from 92 bpm to 48 bpm, 1-minute heart recovery rate has increased from ~10 bpm to ~35 bpm, I've lost 30% of my weight, and I maintained my deficit even when I was really hungry (how do you burn 5,000 calories in a day from just weight training?)

Although there are some points with some truth, I think anyone looking to lose significantly more than 25 pounds should take advice from someone whose best "look what I did!" endorsements are:

"[...] Jim helped former cohost Diane Sawyer lose more than 25 pounds."

"[...] (and he helped editor-at large and Oprah’s bff, Gayle King, lose 25 pounds)."

"Jim and his team of trainers also continue to personally work with one of People magazine's “Sexiest Man Alive" Hugh Jackman and with countless other celebrities, CEOs, and soccer moms in Chicago and New York."

How about Members of the House of Lords and Commons? A Hugh Jackman is not an Eric Pickles, David Cameron, Ed Balls, Ann Widdecombe, or a Diana Abbot.

Strength training (or equivalent) might be more important when you have less to lose, but someone 4 weeks in with 112 lb of fat mass shouldn't do cardio? Ah, I should have stuck to walking 0.2 miles 4 times per week and started weight lifting a lot earlier!

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