Archives for November 2010

Is this really going to help with weight loss?

It seems that many people believe that cardiovascular (“cardio” for short) exercise is necessary for weight loss. The reality is that you can lose weight without doing a second of cardio if you want to.

I’m not saying that you should avoid cardio, but as far as weight loss is concerned it’s not a requirement.

There are many other health benefits to doing regular cardiovascular activity but physiologically and psychologically. Activity and movement is good for your overall sense of well being and there are innumerable benefits that can’t be listed here…unfortunately weight loss isn’t one of them.

Losing weight is dependent upon creating a caloric deficit. In other words, burning more calories than you consume.

With that said it’s obvious that exercising and ‘cardio’ can help you burn a few more calories…BUT, and this is a big BUT…it’s much easier to overeat far more calories than you can ever exercise off.

For example, it might take you or I a solid 90 minutes of ‘cardio’ to burn off 300-400 extra calories…but it would only take us about 2 minutes to eat an extra muffin today that has about 350 calories…

So what is the better option? Find a way to avoid the muffin, or commit to a 90 minute cardio workout?

The point is cardio can help with burning a few more calories, as long as you don’t overcompensate by eating more food. And this is the catch 22 with doing more and more exercise…it stimulates hunger (not to mention it makes you more tired and lethargic at other times of the day)

In other words, you can’t just fix more with more. You cannot simply decide you want to overeat 1000 calories today and try to exercise off 1500 calories. It’s simply not possible.

It’s a much better proposition to shoot for a calorie deficit below BMR (basal metabolic rate) by eating less calories…and then consider any extra calorie loss you get form exercise as a ‘bonus’.

At least this way you allow some wiggle room for the inevitable cookie attack or ice cream meltdown that tends to happen throughout a busy stressful work week.

In todays first ever Venus Index podcast we tackle this question and try to determine how you can use cardio to help compliment your weight loss efforts.

If you can’t listen to the audio you can download the transcript:

Download Transcript –> Cardio or Diet for Weight Loss

John

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