Hi everyone.
5'9, 211plds, 1800-2000Kcal Diet, Cutting
Lift 3 days per week (M,W,F)
Cardio 4 days per week (M,Tu,Th,Fr) 15 minutes jogging-20 min by end month

Sat/Sun completely off

You see my calories, you see my exercise that I do, that is all I do, I have been recomended to do only 10 min of cardio to start, and I will be up to 20 min a day by the end of the month (giving me 80 minutes of total cardio for the last week of march)

I eat solid, 1800-2000, and I have been told this has been designed so that I do NOT lose muscle, and gain lean mass/conserve while i melt fat.

Question: If I add say walking (3mph) for 60 minutes 7 days a week, that could give me an additional -3500Kcal/wk or -1 pound.

Does anyone believe that this is OK, or will I be burning my muscle? I eat the same everyday, even weekends when I do nothing.

I am basically saying on top of my current program, I wish to add daily walking to burn about 10,000 Kcal in 3 weeks. Any feedback would be appreciated.

I feel it should be OK, and maybe someone could tell me the level people are talking about when they say your burning muscle.

ie: It would be say eating 1200 Kcal, no weights, 1 hour treadmill jogs a day. That I feel would burn muscle and fat, but how about what I suggested?

Feedback appreciated, I really want to see a difference for my 1 month pics early april

Yes, walking 60 minutes a day 7x/weekwould help tremendously, preferably in the morning before your first meal. Walking will not burn muscle

20 minutes/4x a week is basically nothing. Can it.

I do 60 minutes every morning and 5 day lifting program, currently taking in about 2200-2500 calories and my cutting is going excellent. I weigh 178lbs at 5'10" for comparison.

Looks ok to me.
I rarely do cardio myself (would prefer a set of squats for faster heartbeat)
If you up you cardio work, just check your progress on weight days each week.
If you cant do the same weights or better than you did the week before its possible your losing muscle.
If your getting stronger then all is good. :bb:

20 minutes/4x a week is basically nothing. Can it.


Thats kind of harsh. But I guess he didn't mention intensity - if you're sauntering along at 50% of your max HR for 20 minutes then I agree.

If you really want to get something out of your 20 minutes - you should be pushing yourself pretty hard with intervals in the 85-90% and 65-70% range for it to be effective.

Walking is great for your joints I hear. But I do that all day anyway.

You’re more likely to burn muscle with the 20 minutes of jogging – your heart rate will likely be above 75% of your max. There’s no fine line between the energy systems your cell use to provide energy – each system is used to a degree at any intensity level, but keeping your intensity under 75% is a good idea if you want to burn fat. At higher intensity, more glycogen and protein are converted to glucose for fuel, and less fat is used (fat can’t supply energy fast enough). When the protein is broken down for fuel, that’s your muscles wasting away.

Also 20 minutes is not long enough in duration to mobilize the fat from adipose tissue and burn it for fuel. The intensity of the walking will spare your muscle, and its duration will burn adequate fat. I wouldn’t count on burning 500cal/hour by walking though, seems high. The number isn’t important anyway.

ie: It would be say eating 1200 Kcal, no weights, 1 hour treadmill jogs a day. That I feel would burn muscle and fat, but how about what I suggested?
This statement simply confuses me.

I do my 20 minutes at 70% heart rate, so that hopefully is ok...

I will add the walking because it seems that no one really had negative feelings on it (all positive), and thanks, I will monitor my progress on the weights to see if I am losing muscle, that is a good idea.

Quote:
Originally Posted by snoopy99
ie: It would be say eating 1200 Kcal, no weights, 1 hour treadmill jogs a day. That I feel would burn muscle and fat, but how about what I suggested?


This statement simply confuses me.


Gillisc... I was trying to ask first if 1 hour walking 7day/wk would be OK to not burn muscle.

Then I offered a suggestion (maybe unclear) as to the level it takes to reach that Muscle burning zone due to excessive cardio, not enought calories. (BAD BAD).

I suggested If it was say eating 1200 Kcal, running 1 hour 7/wk and not lifting weights. If this is agreed upon (will waste muscle), as a comparison, I was just asking how my routine would look for burning muscle

ie: 20 min jogging 4/wk, weights 3/wk, 1800-2000 Kcal and adding walking 60 min 7/wk

Basically, the above 2 lines summarize my question, will that routine result in good fat loss, minimizing muscle loss. I don't want to lose 10 plds of muscle and 10 plds of fat for my first 20 plds, it would kill my metabolism

Thanks for your replies, as of tommorow, I will add in walking for 60 min

20 minutes cardio at 70% of MHR will not cut it. Increase duration to 45 minutes. Keep intensity the same. Method doesn't matter (jogging, walking, bike, elliptical, ping pong....) as long as intensity stays at nearly constant 70%. My recommendation against jogging is based on the assumption that jogging will bring your HR above 70% MHR.

Eating 1200 calories a day is way too little for your weight. Better to keep it at 2000-2200/day.

Lifting 3x/week is critical to preserving muscle. Don't even think about dropping this part of your program.

20 minutes cardio at 70% of MHR will not cut it. Increase duration to 45 minutes. Keep intensity the same. Method doesn't matter (jogging, walking, bike, elliptical, ping pong....) as long as intensity stays at nearly constant 70%. My recommendation against jogging is based on the assumption that jogging will bring your HR above 70% MHR.

Eating 1200 calories a day is way too little for your weight. Better to keep it at 2000-2200/day.

Lifting 3x/week is critical to preserving muscle. Don't even think about dropping this part of your program.

This has probably been answered....but how do you get the percentage for your HR...The running machine at my gym doesnt measure my HR at all for some reason when i hold onto the bars, except a few select times (And it doesnt even seem accurate). I have seen 185 flash up on there a few times though...19 yrs old, 180 lbs. Are there certain physical signs if you dont have something to measure your HR to tell if your doing the right amount? Not to derail the thread or anything - thanks!

I also have that same question. How do you know what 70% is? When i jog, I think my heart rate may be too high and i might be losing muscle. So walking for 30 min is ok?

This has probably been answered....but how do you get the percentage for your HR...The running machine at my gym doesnt measure my HR at all for some reason when i hold onto the bars, except a few select times (And it doesnt even seem accurate). I have seen 185 flash up on there a few times though...19 yrs old, 180 lbs. Are there certain physical signs if you dont have something to measure your HR to tell if your doing the right amount? Not to derail the thread or anything - thanks!
Your max HR is approximately 220-your age in years. So for a 19-year old it would be 201BPM. Another formula is 208-(0.7*age in years), so for you that formula gives 195. Everyone is different and these formulas are estimates. Use either one to calculate 70% of your max. There are other formulas, use the search.

The HR monitors on those machines usually suck. Buy a Polar heart rte monitor instead. You can get one with no bells or whistles, cheap. www.polar.com. Or, you can just take your own pulse. Find a good location (wrist, neck), watch the clock & count the beats for 15 seconds & multiply by 4. Or count for 30 seconds & multiply by 2. Do this often though because you will change during the course of a workout.

I also have that same question. How do you know what 70% is? When i jog, I think my heart rate may be too high and i might be losing muscle. So walking for 30 min is ok?
Multiply your max HR by 70%. Walking for 30 minutes sounds fine to me. If you're interested in fat loss, though, you may want to make it a longer walk.

how about jogging lightly for 30 min? eventually heart rate will start going down right?

I do 20 minutes of HIIT and it's working great for me... 20 minutes a day is fine if your doing HIIT ;) I do throw in a lower intensity day here and there and do 45 minutes of steady state, but I only do that once or twice a week... I do cardio every day

You should probably got for at least 30 mins per cardio session; when I was heavily cutting I worked it up from 40 minutes to 60 within a month and I didn't lose an ounce of muscle; this was with training 6 nights a week with 3 lifting days.
Actually I may have benefitted from being a relative newbie of only about 3-4 months of structured workouts as I may have even gained a bit of muscle.

But yeah, 20 minutes really isn't that much, you need at least another 10, maybe 20 minutes more; if you're using a treadmill/bike for the cardio you could easily drop the intensity to lower your heartrate if you find it creeping up a bit high.

The walking is a nice idea, I wouldn't go mad with it personally though, that's more my opinion than anything though, it might work brilliantly for you.

Cardio builds up very fast - keep pressing it and you will be doing 45 min before you know it. Try adding 5 min a week if you can. The biggest obstacle might be boredom.

the problem is i want to jog lightly, and then after 10 min my heart rate my be too high and i won't know. can i jog light for 30 min? or 45 min is better? i just don't want too high of a heart rate then i will end up losing muscle instead of fat...

the problem is i want to jog lightly, and then after 10 min my heart rate my be too high and i won't know. can i jog light for 30 min? or 45 min is better? i just don't want too high of a heart rate then i will end up losing muscle instead of fat...

Hey Shadow.
From what I understand, if you are sprinting, you are probably at a high heart rate, and likely burning off some muscle. Jogging should be fine (which I have to increase to 30-45 min at least) and walking is also fine for burning more fat than muscle.

Seems like the thread has said:

Jog for 30-45 min OR
Walk for 60 min

Shadow in reference to your question about heart rate getting to high after 10 min of jogging, I think you should measure your heart rate a few minutes into your cardio, not at the start as it may be oscillating. As far as heart rate, it should stay steady at a fixed intensity (ie: 5 MPH on treadmill) EXCEPT as I understand it when your Endurance improves, your heart gets stronger, and you can perform the same jog at a lower heart rate. At that point it may be time to increase the cardio intensity because it is not as challenging as it used to be.

Personally, I am going to try to mix in jogging and walking and try my best. People on this thread have reassured me that minimal muscle will be lost. It seems that the only people that LOSE SIGNIFICANT muscle are those that SEVERELY limit calories, Nail Cardio hard, and neglect weight training.

Good luck

Looks ok to me.
I rarely do cardio myself (would prefer a set of squats for faster heartbeat)
If you up you cardio work, just check your progress on weight days each week.
If you cant do the same weights or better than you did the week before its possible your losing muscle.
If your getting stronger then all is good. :bb:
Since I'm new in here so I read lots of new and old threads that people post so I'm trying to get some usefull information since I'm interested to lose weight so I can have my 6 packs.

So since I started to do cardio 2 times a week and everytime I increase my minutes (1-5) if I started with 12min so today I made 20min and I found that it was quiet easy but the problem is that I'm starting to lose muscles like I can not do the same weights as before and it's killing me !!! So I guess it's kinda impossible to do and to have both things: 6 pack and muscles in same time

P.S> Remember I do not take any pills, any stereoids or anything like that !!!

Comments please !

Since I'm new in here so I read lots of new and old threads that people post so I'm trying to get some usefull information since I'm interested to lose weight so I can have my 6 packs.

So since I started to do cardio 2 times a week and everytime I increase my minutes (1-5) if I started with 12min so today I made 20min and I found that it was quiet easy but the problem is that I'm starting to lose muscles like I can not do the same weights as before and it's killing me !!! So I guess it's kinda impossible to do and to have both things: 6 pack and muscles in same time

P.S> Remember I do not take any pills, any stereoids or anything like that !!!

Comments please !
Did you work out right after your jogging? If so you couldn't lift your previous weights because you were tired, not because you lost muscle in 1 day. You're overthinking this. The stress you're creating will cause your muscles to whither away long before jogging will.

You should probably got for at least 30 mins per cardio session; when I was heavily cutting I worked it up from 40 minutes to 60 within a month and I didn't lose an ounce of muscle; this was with training 6 nights a week with 3 lifting days.
Actually I may have benefitted from being a relative newbie of only about 3-4 months of structured workouts as I may have even gained a bit of muscle.



AGREED. Exercising at above 75% of heart-rate does not automatically promote muscle loss. The body uses glycogen for energy before it breaks down muscle. And even at higher intensity levels, some fat is still being used as your fuel. The only thing you need to do is make sure you have some food (with carbs) before workout when doing higher intensity cardio. Food before lower intensity cardio is not necessary in my opinion as you will not be depleting glycogen stores fully so that it's necessary to tap into muscle. Fasted steady-state cardio is used by many, and I think it has its benefits. I tend to think high intensity intervals are extremely effective for fat loss. I'm not going to argue for their superiority for fat loss as oppossed to fasted steady-state cardio. I have not yet decided for myself. But either method or a combination will help you reach your goals. The point is that you will not lose muscle doing a traditional HIT 20 minute workout or a longer interval workout with a mixture of high intensity intervals and low intensity recovery intervals if your nutrition if appropriate.