First off, let me premise this by saying that everyone is different AND also that cardio just generally speaking is a very good idea for overall health. However, it is important for people to realize that if your sole goal is weight loss, doing a bunch of cardio in addition to dieting, isn't going to result in a noticeable increase in weight loss.
Don't get the wrong idea here. I am not suggesting that people bail on cardio because the overall benefits of getting cardiovascular exercise into your life is an absolutely huge part of living a healthier life. The only point I am trying to make here is that there is a misconception out there that the only way to lose weight is to exercise your ass off. This is fundamentally untrue.
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I say this not just as someone that has read the studies, which I will link to later, but as someone that lived it. Due to really irresponsible decisions I made in my late 20's and all of my 30's, I found myself terribly overweight as I approached 40. Entering my 40's as a fat ass negatively affected my overall health and also sense of self-worth. This is due at least in part to the fact that I spent all of my childhood and the starting portion of my adult years as someone that was in very good shape. I remember promising myself that I would never get fat only to have it happen to me anyway. I think this is true for a lot of people that fall into the rigors of living life and not making time for diet or fitness.
When I first decided to lose some weight, exercise, and in particular cardio, was very difficult for me. I was around 240lbs when my "fighting weight" was around 60 to 70 lbs less than this. Therefore, simply going on a short jog around the neighborhood felt like I was running a marathon. Things have changed a lot since then but the exercise portion of my life was so difficult that I nearly gave up on multiple occasions. This is what I am trying to prevent in other people.
No change in your overall health is going to be meaningful in the long-run unless you make it a permanent part of your life. Crash diets, exercising like a mofo for two months, or fads like fasting don't result in any sort of real change and most of the people that engage in them end up gaining the weight back. But for now let's just focus on the beginning of a person's journey and how cardio, or exercise at all, isn't a necessary part of the process either at the start or at any point in losing weight.
According to a meta-analysis involving more than 1800 overweight or obese people that examined 3 categories of people - diet exclusively, diet and cardio, and diet and weight-training - found that in the end, there was almost no noticeable difference between the 3 groups at the end of the 14 extensive studies. I'll go ahead and warn you that this linked article is a peer-reviewed scientific paper and it can be difficult for people to understand. If you want proof for what I am saying, it is contained in that article, in about 20,000 words.
The results that the scientists involved came to at the end can be trusted because this was a scientific study with no product endorsement involved. IE, they are not trying to sell anything but merely conducted research in physiology. I always ONLY trust studies like this since at no point in time is their judgement influenced by a desired result to sell a product.
In the end, they found that there was an almost meaningless amount of weight loss between the 3 groups, regardless of which path they were on. In layman's terms it simply means that if weight loss is the only objective, that diet is by far the most important part of the process and is what should be focused on the most.
For most people who are overweight like I was, or ever worse off than I was, overloading yourself with too many objectives at first is likely to result in giving up on the program altogether. I still did SOME cardio, but honestly, it was pretty weak. I found that once I started dropping pounds that I naturally became more interested in things like jogging and lifting weights just because I now had the physical ability to do so and was interested in getting a bit of muscle instead of just being a lump that used to be fat. Gradually exercise became more and more a part of my life until it became something that I do every day.
These days I go on runs just for the hell of it and enjoy how it has become easier over time. The notion of running a 5k for example, was completely impossible for me when I started and if I had forced myself to do it, injury could have occurred and even if it didn't the idea of repeating that exercise would have been something that I would dread.
The idea behind lasting fitness is that it becomes something that you WANT to do and nobody wants to do something that hurts them. So I think that since the unbiased science actually found that exercise, at least at the start of a weight loss journey, doesn't actually increase weight loss in any real capacity, people can just go ahead and skip that and end up at the same place.
The trainers I know that are not trying to sell you something all agree that diet is without question, the most important part of any attempt at weight loss. They say this even to the detriment of their own profession.
This isn't to say that we should all be on our sofas starving ourselves. Personally I believe that exercise is a fundamental part of overall health and mental well-being. However, exercise, or excessive exercise is one of the leading causes as to why people abandon a weight-loss program and return to their irresponsible ways. I'm just encouraging people to take a path that they will actually stick with. Focus on diet first. This is a marathon, not a sprint!
I have no professional qualification for what I say - but I do have my own life to use as a reference point. If it can work for me, I strongly believe it can and will work for many others
I agree and why getting your core body temperature up first whilst doing exercise is the key as only then are you burning fat. I was in hospital last month for 10 days and this was the best weight loss program I have had thus far. Not recommended but it does work and has got me onto a level I can now continue with. Exercise is important even if it is not for weight loss but your general well being.
Yes, when I advise people to take on weights instead of cardio I remind them that cardio is very important as well and that they should still focus on that at some point. But I do think that cardio chases people away from the exercise game a lot more frequently than weights do.
thank for all the advise I'll take a good look at those studies as soon as I can 👍
The key to start burning fat, is the metabolism! I dont know why and how, almost everyone who try to lose some weight, is focus only in running/ walking! Nice post!
you can't really change your metabolism all that much but you can change what you feed it!