Cardio - good or bad?

I'm like you, cardio helps me manage my stress. (Mind you, it wasn't always that way!)

The important things to keep in mind are:
- weight loss is a result of a calorie deficit
- the higher the deficit, the more risk of muscle loss, so if you increase cardio, also increase intake of calories. Obviously, weight training is also a good idea to lower the likelihood of muscle loss. And the less weight you have to lose, the smaller the deficit you should aim for to prevent muscle loss. (I don't have enough info to judge if 500-1000 calorie deficit a day is reasonable or not for you)
- frequency of cardio should, imho, be determined by preferences and goals and need for recovery

In and of itself I don't see how cardio can hinder weightloss. But:
- exercise can cause water retention, masking fat loss on the scale (this really isn't a valid reason to exercise less, imho, just something to be mindful of when weighing in)
- if you push your body past its limits (not enough recovery) you might be so tired that you become less active in daily life which can partially compensate for the extra calories you burned during your cardio and perhaps lead to slower than expected weight loss
- some people find cardio makes them hungrier (disproportionately hungrier than the calorie burn of the exercise). But if you track your intake, that shouldn't be an issue unless the hunger is uncontrollable.

As long as you fuel yourself appropriately in accordance with your exercise frequency and duration, and you are mindful of your recovery, I don't see why doing cardio should be an issue for weight loss.

I'm not sure what you mean about too much cardio burning muscle or hindering weight loss.

If you're in a smallish deficit of 10%-20%, so probably about 250-500 calories for you, and you're getting plenty of protein, you should minimize muscle loss however you choose to get that deficit, especially if you are also resistance training which is highly recommended.

Note that many cardio machines over-state calories burned *and* they likely report total calories burned, not net. Bear in mind you'd burn around 100 calories in an hour doing nothing. So be careful about using that number to add to your eating budget for the day.

Recent Athlean video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-RT3MvTY_8

kevymetal_ wrote: »

Everyone has provided lots of great insight here. I definitely don't rely on what the cardio machine is telling me for calories burned. I use a Garmin watch to log my heart rate, work outs, steps etc throughout the day and it's pretty accurate as far as I can tell.

As for feeling super hungry after, yes, I usually am. But I work out first thing in the morning, and then make a super high (50-60g) protein, 400-500cal breakfast and I'm usually good until lunchtime. On most days my total calorie burn for the day is 3500ish calories so I'm trying to consume 2500 in a day. Protein is usually over 200g/day and I'm careful about too many carbs (definitely not Keto or even "low carb") unless I'm doing lots of physical activity that day.

I feel like a lot of people hate cardio so it gets a bad rap. But I agree with what a lot of you have said, if it's working and enjoyable, then do it.

It sounds like you're doing everything right, though I still have a couple of questions:

1. If you're actually on a 1K daily deficit that could equate to two pounds lost per week, and if you only have 35 pounds to lose that's rather aggressive. You will surely lose more muscle mass that way too, especially since you aren't doing resistance training.

2. Estimating 3500 burned per day sounds high to me. That's presumably 1K or more additional calories from high daily activity and exercise. Maybe you're doing a *lot* of cardio. If I'm on my recumbent bike for 30 minutes I log that as 300 calories. I couldn't burn an extra 1K every day for very long if I tried.

I guess the scale will tell in coming weeks, how your rate of actual weight loss compares to expected.

HoneyBadger302 wrote: »

For me I enjoy lifting a lot more, so I focus on that, and add in little cardio workouts in various ways during my workout and day rather than going and doing a "cardio" workout.

Samesies!

I'd much rather get in a filthy lifting session and then take el Doggo for a walkie than "do cardio" as an actual thing.

kevymetal_ wrote: »

Retroguy2000 wrote: »

kevymetal_ wrote: »

Everyone has provided lots of great insight here. I definitely don't rely on what the cardio machine is telling me for calories burned. I use a Garmin watch to log my heart rate, work outs, steps etc throughout the day and it's pretty accurate as far as I can tell.

As for feeling super hungry after, yes, I usually am. But I work out first thing in the morning, and then make a super high (50-60g) protein, 400-500cal breakfast and I'm usually good until lunchtime. On most days my total calorie burn for the day is 3500ish calories so I'm trying to consume 2500 in a day. Protein is usually over 200g/day and I'm careful about too many carbs (definitely not Keto or even "low carb") unless I'm doing lots of physical activity that day.

I feel like a lot of people hate cardio so it gets a bad rap. But I agree with what a lot of you have said, if it's working and enjoyable, then do it.

It sounds like you're doing everything right, though I still have a couple of questions:

1. If you're actually on a 1K daily deficit that could equate to two pounds lost per week, and if you only have 35 pounds to lose that's rather aggressive. You will surely lose more muscle mass that way too, especially since you aren't doing resistance training.

2. Estimating 3500 burned per day sounds high to me. That's presumably 1K or more additional calories from high daily activity and exercise. Maybe you're doing a *lot* of cardio. If I'm on my recumbent bike for 30 minutes I log that as 300 calories. I couldn't burn an extra 1K every day for very long if I tried.

I guess the scale will tell in coming weeks, how your rate of actual weight loss compares to expected.

I've read anything more than 2lbs/week lost is unhealthy, but 1-2lbs/week is fine. I expect to lose a little muscle mass, but as I said before, I still do some weight training to counteract that. Honestly, there's a lot more fat than muscle to lose at this point haha.

And 3500 cal burned is bang on with any TDEE calculator I've used for my age, weight, height and activity level. Aside from the gym, I work in construction, walk my dog twice a day and am often kayaking or mountain biking in my spare time. You're right though, at the end of the day, it's the progress that shows if the numbers are accurate.

To the bolded: That's not exactly what matters, IMU. Researchers estimate that there's a limited amount of body fat that we can metabolize per day per pound of body fat we're holding on our body. After that, the body will try to compensate either by burning lean tissue (such as muscle) or slowing things down (adaptive thermogenesis, perhaps subtle, reducing calorie expenditure in various ways including fatigue, lowered core body temp, slowed hair growth or thinning hair, reduced immune function, etc.).

Granted, most of us aren't going to get to the depth of deficit that will trigger the worst of those things, but those can happen **, and bad effects at the low end of the continuum are fairly common (such as hair thinning, after a few weeks; weakness; or fatigue). I experienced some of that, accidentally losing too fast at first when MFP materially underestimated my calorie needs (rare, but that can happen, too).

From what I've read, there's controversy about how many calories of fat loss per day per pound of body fat is the limit, but I've seen numbers in the 30s. Personally, I'd prefer not to even get close to that, because there will be individual variation around the mean. (Besides, for me as a li'l ol' lady, muscle (re-)gain is especially difficult and slow. YMMV on that aspect.)

To me, what makes sense is some of the rules of thumb seen among folks here (and on the more sensible web sites): Not to exceed 20% of TDEE as a deficit (counting both deficit from intake and extra exercise that isn't eaten back); or losing no more than 0.5-1% of current body weight per week (with a bias toward the lower end of that unless so obese that current weight is an acute health threat, and a strong bias to the 0.5% if other parts of life are stressful - even if "good stress" - because deficit is a stress, and all-source stress is cumulative).

Just my understandings and opinions, though.

** https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10761904/under-1200-for-weight-loss/p1

As far as "cardio burns up muscles", I think high-level athletes in my sport are a reasonable counter-example. They aren't bodybuilders (by far) because that level of mass would be dysfunctional for performance. Maybe it's just me, but this woman doesn't look totally burned up to me - more like lean and strong - and I'll guarantee that at the time she did more hours of cardio on an average ho-hum training day than most of us regular folks do in a week, maybe even month. Yeah, generally rowers lift, too. Waaay more hours of cardio, though. (It's Megan Musnicki, BTW, at the time a US National Team rower.) Elite cyclists don't tend to have tiny thighs, either, do they?