Is Cardio REALLY Necessary for Fat Loss?

For me, cardio is more for a healthier heart than for weight loss.

Me too

I hate using the word cardio, any successful workout should get your heart rate up. There are two main types of exercises "aerobic" and "anaerobic". In aerobic exercises, the muscle is twitching so fast (like in running), that the body doesn't have time to supply enough energy to complete the task, so it uses oxygen until it can supply enough energy. Oxygen burns fat. Aerobic exercise is a fast way to lose fat, but its effects don't last very long so you have to do it almost everyday. Anaerobic exercise happens when the muscles are twitching so slowly (weight lifting) that the body has enough time to utilize ATP as its energy source. Anaerobic exercise builds strength and stamina, and ultimately speeds up metabolic rate. The downside is that in order to build muscle, we have to put small tears in the muscle, allow for repair, and then to become bigger. Done correctly, this takes time, but the effects last longer than aerobic.
The reason why aerobic exercise is important, is that the body likes to find the easiest and quickest way to utilize energy. Eventually your body will adjust to your weight lifting routine and the fat loss will become less effective if any at all (be more maintenance). On days where you might not be weight lifting, or you are had a light lifting day, include about 30 mins of aerobic exercise. Another good idea, although this applies more to aerobic exercise than anaerobic exercise, is to break your workout up into 2 or 3 mini workouts. This refers back to the simple physics law "an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force". The object is your body, the outside force is energy. If you break your workout up into 2 or 3 mini workouts, your body will have to utilize more energy to go from resting to working a couple different times, vs if you completed the workout in one session.
As mentioned previously if you're trying to lose fat, no matter how much you exercise, if you have a ineffective diet then you will see little to no results. Let me explain what I mean by ineffective diet. You need to eat healthy, obviously, but depending on your exercise you need to use the energy source that would be most effective for your body. There are three main types of energy sources: carbohydrates, fats, and protein. Carbohydrates are your body's favorite, they are easily utilized as an energy source. This is great when you're doing a lot of aerobic exercise and you need your body to create energy faster. Like I said before, the effects of aerobic exercise don't last as long and so to see results you would have to perform a aerobic exercise everyday. For anaerobic exercising, such as weight lifting, it is better to have a diet high in fat and protein, and few carbohydrates. Fat is the second easiest source of energy for your body to utilize, it also contains twice the amount of energy compared to a protein or a carbohydrate. You need to make sure you eat saturated fats, not unsaturated, you want your body to work for its energy. By eating saturated fats, you will utilize more energy AND train your body to burn fat (which is what you want, fat loss). This is one reason why the Atkins is so successful. Proteins are the hardest for your body to breakdown. The reasoning behind this is once again your body is lazy. Your body will first try to use carbohydrates, then fat, and finally protein as an energy source. This is necessary because our bodies are made up almost entirely of proteins. Im sure you know this, but the reason it's important to have a lot of protein in your diet when performing anaerobic exercise is because protein is necessary to build muscle. You need to make sure that you stay hydrated with WATER (not sugary drinks, kind of defeats the purpose), because the breakdown of proteins creates a lot of toxic waste and your kidneys need to use a lot of water to flush it from your system. If you don't, then you could injure your kidneys.

#B.S. in Animal Science

It's been nearly a year. I think the OP figured it out. :laugh: