Paige Harris Despite popular belief, cardio is NOT the best workout for weight loss. Discover how you can optimize your workouts and ditch the cardio for good!
Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard this before: “I know I need to get into shape. Cardio time! I’ve gotta get to the gym and start running again.”
And that’s where it all goes wrong.
Now, I’m not saying that it’s wrong or bad to want to lose weight. And I’m also not saying that cardio plays no role in the amount of weight a person can lose. However, I am saying the following:
Cardio is not the best way to lose weight. Period.
But despite this, we continue to believe that it’s true. If you walk into any gym, you’ll find it packed with people running on treadmills, cycling on bikes, or elliptical-ing until their faces turn red. People come to the gym religiously to perform their cardio workouts. And they never change up the routine.
For example, you may choose to run 5 kilometers every day. No more. No less.
And at first, your body will respond. You may see a little bit of weight loss due to the increase in your activity level. But if you continue to run those same 5 kilometers every day, do you know what will happen?
Your weight loss will plateau.
And that plateau isn’t happening because you’re doing something wrong. In fact, it’s happening because your body is doing something right.
When you start out doing cardio exercise, your body responds by burning more calories than it otherwise would so that it can fuel your workout. That’s why people exercise to lose weight in the first place. However, that isn’t the whole story.
The first time you run 5 kilometers, it’s hard. Your body has never done anything like that before, and so it uses tons of energy to get through the workout. But the next time you run 5 kilometers, your body is more prepared. In a sense, it remembers running like that before and adapts to that new stimulus.
And as you continue to run, your body continues to adapt. This means that you’ll be more efficient at running, aka you’ll spend less calories fueling the run.
In fancy science talk, all of this stimulus slows down your metabolism. This means that you’ll burn less calories while doing the same amount of work.
If there’s no change to their diet (a topic for a whole other post), then the only way to continue past that weight-loss plateau is to run faster or longer. At first it seems pretty easy to run a bit further or a bit faster, but at some point you’re not going to be able to do anymore.
On top of that, if you suddenly stop your cardio routine but continue to eat the same, your body will begin to store those extra calories away again.
Do you really want to spend hours every day slugging away on the treadmill just so you can maintain your current weight? I didn’t think so.
So what is the best way to lose weight?
Good ol’ fashioned resistance training. Pick up heavy stuff and put it back down again.
Lifting weights stimulates your body to become more efficient, but it does it differently than when you do cardio. When you lift a heavy weight, your brain sends a muscle-building signal to your body’s systems. This way, the next time it encounters a heavy weight, it’s able to lift it more easily (and expend less energy in doing so).
“But Paige, if my body’s still trying to become more efficient, how is weight lifting any different from cardio?”
Simple! Muscle is expensive, calorically speaking. Your body has to work hard to keep your muscles strong. It’s estimated that one pound of muscle burns around 5 times more calories per hour than one pound of fat does.
This means that even at rest, your body will burn more calories if you have more muscle than if you were the same exact weight with a higher-fat body composition.
In fancy science talk, weight training speeds up your metabolism. This means that your body will burn more calories to keep up its muscle mass even if you aren’t working out for hours on end.
Crazy, huh!
That’s why I highly recommend resistance training over hours and hours of cardio. Resistance training is the best way to maximize your overall health and wellness, but I know that it can be intimidating to get started. That’s why I created this post that lays out everything you need to know to start training with barbells and this one that modifies all of those exercises with dumbbells. These workouts are super basic but super effective, so give them a look!
And if you’re really looking to better yourself, shoot me an email so we can figure out a health and fitness routine to match your unique lifestyle!
