by Adam Whitlach

 Cardio is a very misunderstood means of burning calories in today’s society.  Everyone understands that cardiovascular exercise does burn calories.  There is no question about it.  However, interpreting exactly how much cardio needs to be done to burn off a donut or a bowl of pasta is sorely underestimated.  I see so many people that come in to the gym and exercise just so they can work off the pizza they ate or the beer they drank.  As I watch these people, I take note that they are carrying on a conversation with the person next to them, reading a magazine, or watching whatever is on the television.  At best, these people do about 20-30 minute minute sessions at a moderate/low intensity level.  Let’s say these people burn about 300 calories in 20 minutes… and this is an extremely generous figure.  We need to see exactly how long they’d have to do cardio to burn off a hypothetical quantity of food.

Let’s say this person ate 4 cups of cooked white spaghetti. The serving size sounds huge, but remember its already cooked.  1 cup of white spaghetti is about 220 calories (most of them carbs).  220 calories x 4 cups = 880 calories.  This person would need to do cardio for nearly an hour JUST to burn off one meal.  This leaves at least 2 meals worth of calories unaccounted for and if the calorie content of these meals were anywhere near the pasta meal; we are looking at hours upon hours of cardio just negate the calories consumed that day… we haven’t even begun to burn fat yet.

There is no way around it folks.  Food is too important to think that you can just ”work off what you ate.”  You’ll hurt yourself trying.  If your calorie intake is where it needs to be then cardio should be done to stimulate your metabolism to burn fat, not to negate what you are eating.  Nutrition should be a resource that prepares your body to lose fat.   The cardio should be the stimulant that releases the fat.  So how much cardio should be done then?

Well if your diet is meeting the calorie level it should be, then 20- 30 minute cardio sessions should be just fine.  Perform them about 4-6 days a week; however, the intensity is the key.  I hear many fitness instructors preach about “fat burning” zone when referring to monitoring heart rate.  These zones usually fall around the 120-140 beats per minute depending on your current fitness level.  If you want to experiment for a few weeks and perform your cardio at this level, go right ahead.  I’ll tell you right now, cardio at this low intensity is get you NOWHERE!  Sure you’ll burn fat during the cardio session; however, once the cardio is down, fat burning is done!  The ONLY people that can get away with this type of cardio are bodybuilders that have about 170+ pounds of lean muscle mass.  Even then, the smaller guys are still doing upwards of 3 hrs a day and they are also on a optimal diet during contest seasons…  who has time for that?  We need to be burning fat all day long!

High intensity cardio is the way to go says the American College of Sports Medicine when they published ACSM’s Guidelines for Exercise Testing and Conditioning in 2000.  Always strive to surpass what you were previously capable of accomplishing.  Try to burn 10 more calories in the same amount of time, gain an extra 1/10 of a mile in the same time, etc.  I tend to favor High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT.  All this means is that you pick your favorite method of cardio (ie: bike, elliptical, stair stepper, etc.).  Then perform a series of high and low points where you cruise for 1 minute and then sprint for 30 seconds.  Your heart rate should reach 160 bpm or higher.  This kind of cardio is brutal but it also pays off with great results.  By forcing your heart rate to such a high level, your EPOC levels also rise much higher.  EPOC is excess post-exercise oxygen consumption.  Think of this as an oxygen debt that needs to be paid after exercise.  The harder you train, the harder your body will work to restore its oxygen requirements which means you’ll burn more calories after HIIT cardio than low intensity cardio. 

“Anything worth having is never easy.”  I find that a lot of people are drawn to low intensity cardio because it sounds closer to what they want to hear.  In a world where red wine and chocolate have become “healthy,” we can’t afford to follow anymore misinformation.  HIIT cardio sucks.  There is no way around it unless you are some sort of masochist.  Keep in mind that your body does not want to lose weight. The average American lifestyle is very low in physical activity.  Hence we are the fattest nation on earth; therefore, the body must be forced to use fat a fuel source.

Tags: calorie burn, calories in vs. calories out, progressive cardio

This entry was posted on Monday, December 1st, 2008 at 9:12 am and is filed under Cardio, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.