Does 20-30 minutes of cardio really work?

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Here are some things to consider:

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/case-against-cardio/#axzz35l49pJEi

If it doesn't, then I must have been exercising in my sleep.

by the way, you don't exercise to lose weight, you eat right to lose weight, you exercise to become healthy and maintain your lean tissue mass. If your focus is losing weight, make sure you understand, you could exercise all day, but if you eat crap, and eat to much of it, you'll still gain fat.

This has been my experience!!!

Lots of good info from everyone...but as has already been said by a few people, consider adding 30 min of weight training. That way your muscles will continue to burn calories after when you're at rest. Your quads are the big muscles that will burn the most. Weight training, HIIT, CrossFit are all programs to look at

High intensity interval training is great for shorter workouts - I'm a fan of it..

To answer your question, yes. 20-30 minutes is good and much better than nothing but ^^^THIS is def what I would say.

Regardless of the reason why you want to do cardio it is beneficial. If you can only manage 20/30 minutes a day it is a great start. As days go by you will be able to intensify your cardio.

I prefer to do cardio one day and strenght training on the following day, I do 7 days a week alternating, for me it works and I feel energized. I akso vary the type of cardio to prevent boredom and the same for the strenght training.

Best of luck

Hi there!

Technically yes any amount of exercise is going to give you some health benefits. From a losing weight standpoint however your body will burn primarily carbohydrates in the first 20 minutes- it is not until well past that point that your body will switch to burning fat as a fuel source.

My recommendation is if you're new to exercise then it's best to start small and build up to avoid injury. If you've already been exercising then most definitely stick to 30 mins + as often as you can.

Best of Luck!

Leslie Sansone does a Cardio Walking DVD that I just love and I have never sweat so much in my life! 2 miles with warm up and cool down takes 3 minutes - my commitment is that next week, I will do it twice!

Fantastic!

Kaela x

I'm wondering what exactly is cardio is it a long walk count? or jogging or running at 75% max HR?

I like to do long hill walks (3-3:30 Hrs) as much for mental health as any physical benefits is that cardio?

Like I said earlier any sort of physical activity is going to be beneficial- you're already lapping everyone on the couch! As far as what is considered cardio that's a harder question to answer. Running or jogging at 75% of your max HR while a good thought is hard to accurately execute. Typically max HR can be determined in a number of different ways according to ACSM guidelines but can be roughly estimated by 220- Age (ex: 41 yr old male, 220-41= 179 bpm).

However there are numerous factors that play into what your max HR truly is, for instance your weight, age, gender, physical fitness the list goes on. Not to mention that most people don't necessarily have the equipment on hand while they're running or doing other cardio exercises to measure their own Heart rate.On a treadmill sure they have the HR monitor items but they don't take all factors into account. And especially with it being summer your heart rate is going to naturally increase when running in the heat- Making it more difficult to access whether or not you're in your target heart range.

Sorry this is so long but maybe it'll help someone :flowerforyou:

Ok, need to put this into perspective.

In general, 20-30 minutes of anything is better than 20-30 minutes of nothing. Cardio offers great health benefits for your heart and body especially if you work at a target heart rate appropriate for your age, gender and fitness level.

For weight loss, 20-30 minutes of cardio really does work "if" you are still eating at a calorie deficit. You can lose weight not exercising at all, 20-30 minutes of cardio will just make that easier. Be very careful though, fitness pal tends to over-estimate calories burnt during exercise so if you eat back your calories burned exercise you run the risk of going over your actual calories burnt. Fitness pal is an estimate at best and not a great one.

two tips, get a heart rate monitor or at least use a machine that has a sensor attached. Choose a cardio setting that adjusts the difficulty based on your heart rate, great workout. 2nd tip, if you do end up using MFP's estimates, I'd cut the calorie amounts in half to be safe. Worse case scenario you under-estimate the calories burnt and just add a little extra to your deficit.