Don’t fall into the mindset of doing cardio for fat loss.
Many people think doing lots of cardio means losing pounds of body fat.
I don’t blame them either because we tend to overestimate the effectiveness of cardio when it comes to fat loss.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying cardio does not have any benefits for your health, or it does not burn any calories or help you lose body fat.
But using only cardio to reduce body fat is a bad idea.
It wasn’t until I fully understood how our body uses energy that I stopped relying on cardio myself.
But first, we have to understand the mechanics of body fat.
Everything starts with the food we eat, which gets converted into energy.
When we eat food, they all get digested. Fats are converted to fatty acids, proteins to amino acids, and carbohydrates to glucose and glycogen.
Carbohydrates and fats are the body’s preferred energy sources. After our body utilises fatty acids, glucose and glycogen, the leftover or excess gets stored as body fat, a backup energy source.
Fat is the most dense energy source. It is generally accepted a pound of body fat has, on average, 3,500 calories.
For a 154-pound person, it takes over 1 hour to burn approximately 600 calories at 5mph (By the way, this is a medium to high effort running speed for an average person). So, in theory, if a 154-pound person wants to lose a pound of body fat. Then, he has to run over 5.5 hours non-stop at 5mph to burn 1 pound of body fat.
But if this person eats 1000 calories above maintenance daily or 7000 extra calories per week. He has to do over 17.5 hours of cardio weekly at 5mph just to lose a pound of body fat. Because, if you do the math, a pound of fat or 3500 + 7000 extra calories equals 10,500 calories. So 10,500 divided by 600 equals over 17.5 hours or 2.5 hours of cardio daily.
This amount of cardio in a week is not an enjoyable experience for the average person looking to lose fat. Plus, asking an average person to do hours of cardio is unrealistic.
Some other reason to stop relying solely on cardio includes:
Limited Caloric Burn
Cardio burns calories during the activity, but the calorie burn stops once you finish. Even the hyped-up afterburn effect of High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) only amounts to 75ml orange juice or 35 calories. As a result, it does not significantly boost your metabolism in the long term.
Metabolic adaptation
The human body is very good at adapting. So, your body will eventually adapt to cardio, making it less effective for fat loss, also known as Metabolic adaptation. As your body adjusts to exercise, you must exercise harder or longer to burn the same amount of calories. You might hit a plateau where your progress stalls.
Appetite Increase
Some people experience increased appetite after cardio. It can result in overcompensating by eating more calories than they burned.
So, what should you do instead?
To reduce body fat, combine cardio with a whole foods diet with lots of plants and protein in a caloric deficit. Add resistance training and manage factors like stress, sleep, and hormonal balance for better results.
I used the same principle to make achieving a single-digit body fat easier.
To give you a detailed approach, here’s what I did:
- Ate a whole foods diet with lots of plant foods: Whole foods are nutrient-dense, high in fibre, good for your gut, reduces inflammation and keeps you fuller. Consider carrots versus Coca-Cola. While it is true that 240 calories of carrots, about 10 carrots, would have the same effect on calorie balance as the 240 calories in Coke. This comparison fails in the real world. The liquid calories can be swallowed in less than a minute, but eating 240 calories of carrots might take much chewing, as that is around 5 cups. Also, the sheer volume of the carrots and their fibre content can fill your stomach to the point where you may not feel hungry.
- Ate 2 grams of protein per kg of body weight: A high protein diet induces weight loss as protein is more satiating, meaning less appetite and hunger. It reduces cravings and unwanted snacking. Boosts metabolism and improves fat-burning. It lowers blood pressure and helps you maintain weight loss. Need I say more?
- Ate in a caloric deficit: How do you know if you’re in a caloric deficit? Well, in practical terms, it is more straightforward than you think. Watch the portions of your meals and weigh yourself daily or every other day. Take the averages or the trends to see if you’re losing weight. If you hit a new low every few days or weeks, you can be sure you’re in a caloric deficit and losing body fat. If it’s going the opposite, you’re in a caloric surplus. If it stays the same for a few weeks, you are in maintenance, so adjust your total food intake accordingly. You can also take your waist measurement as it is commonly the last place our body loses fat.
- Slept 7–8 hrs: Better sleep health is associated with greater weight and fat loss. Lack of sleep increases appetite, leading to weight gain. It disrupts your normal metabolism functions, such as increased oxidative stress, glucose intolerance and insulin resistance, leading to higher chances of fat gain.
- Did resistance training: I included 3–4 days of resistance training, but you can do anywhere from 2–4 days to see the benefits. Resistance training won’t use up a lot of calories or body fat, but it will increase your resting metabolism — so you burn calories even at rest without much effort. I also did medium-intensity cardio at the end, which only amounted to 15 to 20 minutes in my 1.5-hour workout session.
To conclude
Relying only on cardio to burn body fat is like digging a tunnel using only a shovel. The shovel works, but to finish digging the tunnel will take considerable time, effort and suffering.
Combining a reasonable amount of cardio (for health benefits), resistance training, eating whole foods with lots of plants and protein in a caloric deficit, and sleeping well is a better and more time-efficient combination for losing body fat.
