When it comes to weight loss, your nutritional habits have a much bigger impact than your training
On a daily basis I speak to people who have struggling to control their weight. Despite not achieving the results they want they are convinced they know that doing loads of cardio is the priority even if doing that hasn't worked for them in the past. Cardio has many health benefits and it does contribute to you being in a calorie deficit, but it makes a very small contribution compared to eating a calorie controlled diet.
When it comes to weight loss, your nutritional habits have a much bigger impact than your training
You can easily get lean without doing any cardio if you're eating an amount that puts you in a calorie deficit, however no amount of training will make up for you eating too much.
The saying that you can't out train a poor diet is largely true
This doesn't mean I think cardio is a waste of time when you're trying to lose weight. I always encourage my clients to increase their daily steps and to try to be more active as it obviously does help, but understand it's your diet that will make the biggest difference. A lot of people who are trying to lose weight make the mistake of looking at their training first and do loads of cardio or gym classes and not focus on their diet..
The reality is that neither cardio or weight training do a lot to create an energy deficit
when compared to simply eating a calorie controlled diet.
when compared to simply eating a calorie controlled diet.
According to the American Council of Exercise, if you weigh 120lbs (54.4kg) jogging for 45 minutes burns approximately 418 calories. That's around the same as a two slices of Dominos pizza, or a large slice of cake which I could eat in five minutes. For a 180lbs person this increases to 625 calories. Its not a lot of calories for 45 minutes of hard work.
Other than walking I haven't been doing any cardio for the past year, but I have been very consistent with my diet. As a result I am the leanest I have ever been. I'm much leaner than when I was younger and I was doing 1.5 hours of intensive Muay Thai 5 or 6 days a week, ran at least 3 or 4 times a week, cycled around 55 miles a week to work which was an active job. I young and active from the moment I woke up until I went to bed including some intense training sessions, but I wasn't close to being as lean because my diet wasn't good enough back then.
Stop looking for fat lose routines, and don't do hours of cardio and gym cardio classes to try lose weight. If you're not focusing on your diet you're focusing on the wrong thing.
Stop looking for fat lose routines, and don't do hours of cardio and gym cardio classes to try lose weight. If you're not focusing on your diet you're focusing on the wrong thing.
Failure to lose weight is in almost all cases due to not being consistent enough with your diet.
FitBit's are useless when it comes to measuring how many calories you have burned
Many people use FitBit' or some other brand to measure how many calories they used during a session. You shouldn't use how many calories you used as a way to measure how good a session is anyway, but these monitors are so inaccurate for calculating calories that they aren't worth using to measure your energy expenditure during a workout. They normally overestimate how many calories you burned during a session.
In a study published in 2017, Mattsson tested the calorie counters of several wrist worn monitors. The most accurate one was off by an average of a massive 27%. And the least accurate was off by 93%. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5491979/
"Median error rates across tasks varied from 27.4% (24.0%–30.8%) for the Fitbit Surge to 92.6% (87.5%–97.7%) for the PulseOn. For EE, the lowest relative error (RE) rates across devices were achieved for the walking (31.8% (28.6%–35.0%)), and running (31.0% (28.0%–34.0%)) tasks, and the highest on the sitting tasks (52.4% (48.9%–57.0%))."
"None of the devices provided estimates of energy expenditure that were within an acceptable range in any setting."
Another recent study tested four trackers. The Apple Watch Series 4, Polar Vantage V, Garmin Fenix 5, and Fitbit Versa. and concluded that while they did well at measuring heart rate, none of the four should be used to monitor energy expenditure the intensities and durations tested.
Ignore how many calories it says you burned during a session.
In a study published in 2017, Mattsson tested the calorie counters of several wrist worn monitors. The most accurate one was off by an average of a massive 27%. And the least accurate was off by 93%. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5491979/
"Median error rates across tasks varied from 27.4% (24.0%–30.8%) for the Fitbit Surge to 92.6% (87.5%–97.7%) for the PulseOn. For EE, the lowest relative error (RE) rates across devices were achieved for the walking (31.8% (28.6%–35.0%)), and running (31.0% (28.0%–34.0%)) tasks, and the highest on the sitting tasks (52.4% (48.9%–57.0%))."
"None of the devices provided estimates of energy expenditure that were within an acceptable range in any setting."
Another recent study tested four trackers. The Apple Watch Series 4, Polar Vantage V, Garmin Fenix 5, and Fitbit Versa. and concluded that while they did well at measuring heart rate, none of the four should be used to monitor energy expenditure the intensities and durations tested.
Ignore how many calories it says you burned during a session.
How to lose fat
- Eat adequate protein
- Manipulate your fat and/or carb intake to achieve a calorie deficit
- Weight train 2-4 times a week
- Do a moderate amount of cardio (especially walking) for heart health and to help towards being in a calorie deficit.
It's that simple. Don't over complicate it.