By I would like to begin by warning all of those people who do a huge amount of cardio, for no apparent reason, apart from thinking they can out train a bad diet, or it will help them keep of the body fat from accumulating… Sorry guys, truth be told…
The worst way to exercise is doing cardio only for fat loss.
I’m speaking from years of experience here, in doing the absolute wrong thing (cardio), and then getting hold of my sense, and then transitioning to weight training. Believe me, it can be done and I’m a female mind you.
The worst thing about being a female and training, is that we start of our journey believing that cardio is the only way to keep fit and lose body fat. That means, we stick to the tried and tested treadmill, or the cross trainer (which was my absolute favourite back then) and just keep smashing away at it for weeks, months and years, whilst ever changing our body shapes. We wonder why things aren’t going to plan, as the magazine article said it would! Why in fact, are we kind of getting a bit more flabby in the process…
The reason is simple… because from all the excessive cardio training, we have diminished our muscle mass, put our bodies into a cortisol state (therefore messed around with the other hormones that govern weight loss) depleting our metabolic rate. This is what a lot of people refer to as metabolic damage. It isn’t in fact damaged, it’s that your body has gone into shut down mode from all the extreme stress, low caloric eating and bucket load of pointless activity. As our bodies just want us to be in a homeostasis state each and every day, you now have set the body in motion for self-preservation in a state of extreme stress and famine. It will retreat towards submission, not allowing the body reshaping goals to become a reality.. for now.
The downfall to this situation, is that it takes a whole lot of time for the body to recover. The more you keep living this strategy and keep on pushing yourself, the longer it takes! Believe me, I’ve been there, and many other former competitors will resonate well with this situation. Excessive low caloric dieting can cause this kind of metabolic shutdown as well. Those on a diet, or who have been for years will be hearing me loud and clear now.
After delving into the dark side of excessive cardio and low caloric dieting, I want to at least give you a solution to it all, or perhaps a means to learn from my own hard lesson, and those that many others have suffered.
4 of the best way to exercise, get leaner and actually be healthy!
- Weight train, learn to believe in yourself and lift heavy!
Whatever you can do to learn this, do it! Get the help of a trainer, watch a million YouTube clips, ask friends, siblings or anyone to teach you the basics. These are deadlifts, squats, benches, pull and chin ups as well as lunges. Leave the other exercises for now, and really set a goal to master the most important multi-joint lifts there is. Once you have these under your belt, slowly lifting heavier and heavier, you will see astonishing benefits to your body composition, fat burning potential and strength. Please note, this DOES NOT happen overnight. It could take 2,3 or 6 months to see progression. However long it takes, KEEP AT IT! If you execute these movements properly, regularly, and lift heavy, there is no doubt that one day, you will see the improvements. If you don’t, I guarantee someone will pick up on the fact that you look a lot more fit and shapely! - Clean up your diet 90% of the time.
That means, plan your meals around whole foods, natural and nutritious recipes. Search the net, download recipe books, and learn how to cook and prepare your meals (more on this later, as I will be featuring this in my blog shortly). I know it’s challenging, and at the moment its confusing perhaps, but you do have to get out there and find someone that can help you, or learn. Start from scratch and apply the basics. Don’t worry about master chef, make them simple, tasty and easy to make. Think herbs, condiments, chicken, fish, pork, eggs and lots of veggies. Once you get the hang of what to do, it will get a whole lot easier. - Read up on fitness and health principles, then apply them.
I always read up on everything I can get my hands on when it comes to fitness, weight training and health – then I decide what suits me, my lifestyle and goals, then I apply the principle. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. You wont ever know until you try, so just do it and know that you can always change if it’s not working. The plus is you will get that out of your conscious, rather than thinking about it constantly. - Intermittent fasting for re-setting a sluggish metabolism.
I highly recommend this way of eating in order to diminish cravings and reset your metabolism. It’s worked wonders for me, and many other people. Try to fast a couple of times a week for 12 hours, then slowly increase the time you spend fasting. It’s challenging in the beginning, and you will be really hungry, but after a week or so, things will start to move into a positive direction. You will start to lose weight, feel a lot lighter, and notice a shift upwards in your energy levels. For the best results, fast every day, using different hours. Eg, Monday can be 12 hour fasts, Tuesday 20 hours, Wednesday 16 hours, Thursday 14 hours, Friday 20 hours, Saturday 12 hours, Sunday 17 hours. Keep your body guessing each and every day. Allow one to two days for a longer eating window to replenish and reset glycogen levels.
I hope that this has given you some insight into the world of cardio, and shifted your belief about it’s aspects. I don’t want to be the bad voice for cardio, as it does serve a purpose for health, but not if it’s an obsessive act causing health issues. Like weights, we always should take into consideration how our bodies respond, and what we need to do to change the outcome. Feel free to contact me on these various platforms if you need further assistance. I have plenty of other blog posts on angedim or join me on fb and insta social standpoints. Please feel free to upvote this answer if it has been useful in some way to you.