cardio, or is a deficit adequate?

[gray]

Is cardio an essential part of fat loss? It burns calories (it boosts your metabolism--- which burns calories), but what if you just limit calories instead? I understand both together will have a greater effect, but could you eliminate cardio and still lose fat at a reasonable rate (ie. 1lb per week)?

[Azure]

Oh hell yeah.

The deficit is WAY more important than the cardio.

Of course, both together will work BETTER, but you can absolutely lose weight without cardio.

You are doing weights right?

[gray]

Yeah I do weights. I have this weird pain (clicking noise when I extend it quickly) behind my knee --- wanted to take it easy.

[NCNBilly]

There are a couple schools of thought here, but in general cardio allows you to eat more clean food that 'keeps the engine running'. Personally, I only allow for a 300-400 cal deficit and use cardio/lifting to get another 400-500 a day.

If you don't want to do cardio per se, you could do a varied lifting pattern - Max Effort some days, Max weight others which is similar to HIIT and you'll get a cardio benefit.

Cardio also raises your general fitness level. No sense in being under 8%BF if you get winded walking up a flight of stairs.

[jdb-44]

Originally Posted by NCNBilly

Cardio also raises your general fitness level. No sense in being under 8%BF if you get winded walking up a flight of stairs.

Well said! While doing intense weight work is said to have great effects for fat loss, you can't discount cardio. I like to mix the two.

You know what would be interesting: having a way to compare calories burned per day between heavy cardio and heavy weight training. I've heard it said that heavy weight training (and HIIT), while shorter in duration, burns more calories *per day* than steady-state cardio, because the metabolism stays raised longer. But at what point does moderate intensity steady state cardio overtake weight training/HIIT in terms of calories burned?

Example: on a normal weight training day I'd burn X number of calories during the session, plus whatever my increased metabolism would burn off throughout the rest of the day (the question is, of course, just how much my metabolism would be elevated post workout--1 cal/hr? 5 cals/hr?).

Compare that to today: I did no weights today, but pounded out 60 minutes of steady state (but very intense) cardio on the elliptical, and burned 1180 calories, according to the display. My heart got up to 150 pretty quickly (I use 100% resistance and the highest incline setting) and stayed at about 170-175 for most of the workout. So I was not just taking it easy.

I'd also like to think that my metabolism is still a bit up and will stay that way for a while, even if it's not the 24+ hour uplift I've heard that intense weight training can bring about. So...calories per day=??

How might this compare to a regular intense day of weights only? I don't know, but it would be great to see some kind of spreadsheet that really showed calories per day by exercise by intensity. That would be cool.

Finally...I realize that resistance training has certain health benefits specific to that discipline, and cardio has its own specific benefits; that's a topic for another discussion. Just talking pure calories burned, here.

Happy Tuesday,
Jared

[kevin_in_ga]

This is an interesting question - when does steady state surpass HIIT for total calories burned.

Having recently gotten a Polar HRM, and also recently strting HIIT after six or seven months of steady state cardio on the elliptical, here are my observations:

1. The display does not factor in your heart rate, which is the major determinant of your total caloric burn. Think of it this way - each liter of oxygen burns 5 Kcal, so the higher your heart rate the more oxygen you are burning. The closer you are to your VO2max, the harder the workout and the greater the training benefit.

2. On steady state, I might burn 400-500 calories in a 30 minutes session, with my heart rate typically at 145 bpm. Not sweating a lot until near the very end, and never out of breath. The display typically overestimates the actual calories I expend.

3. On HIIT I will burn 400-500 calories in the same 30 minute workout, but I am sweating like a pig and out of breath almost the whole time, and my legs are exhausted at the end. Ironically the display typically underestimates my caloric output.

4. Also, you get the EPOC benefit from the intense cardio, which is also not factored in on the display.

Bottom line - after resisting HIIT for a while (concerned about a prior knee injury) I am now using HIIT for every cardio session I can, for the reasons listed above.

The display measures what you do to the machine, not what the machine does to you.

[jdb-44]

Kevin, I appreciate your input. You always seem to have excellent advice.

Good luck on your fitness goals!

Jared

[kevin_in_ga]

I would suggest buying a heart rate monitor - the questions you are asking are good ones. Your personal answers will come from the HRM data. Trust me, it will change the way you approach your workouts (and yes, I use it to measure calories burned during lifting as well - they are usually less, but there is a larger EPOC from lifting that more than compensates).

[stevemrdcs]

There is a hand held device- Medgem and Bodygem that measure your RMR.
If you have access to a place that offers this, it will give you a pretty accurate reading of your RMR.
Of course, there is a cost and your metabolism changes with your weight, activity and food intake daily.
Just a thought, as I am a competitive cyclist and we get into all sorts of gadgets to read anything from power out put to threshold levels.

[jediMaster]

Originally Posted by kevin_in_ga

2. On steady state, I might burn 400-500 calories in a 30 minutes session, with my heart rate typically at 145 bpm. Not sweating a lot until near the very end, and never out of breath. The display typically overestimates the actual calories I expend.

3. On HIIT I will burn 400-500 calories in the same 30 minute workout, but I am sweating like a pig and out of breath almost the whole time, and my legs are exhausted at the end. Ironically the display typically underestimates my caloric output.

Kevin,
Shouldn't your HIIT workout be burning more calories than your steady state workout if both done for the same amount of time? Your numbers say you burned the same number of calories. I'm confused.

[BartGA]

Originally Posted by kevin_in_ga

3. On HIIT I will burn 400-500 calories in the same 30 minute workout, but I am sweating like a pig and out of breath almost the whole time, and my legs are exhausted at the end. Ironically the display typically underestimates my caloric output.

You are a better man than I, that's for sure. No WAY I could do HIIT for 30 minutes.... I was lucky to get in 20 when I was doing it.

I think similarly to Ellington Darden. He says eat less calories and forget cardio. Also, with the HIT style workouts, you get something like cardio during your workouts since you have short rest periods. Is that the same as running? No way, not even close.

I try to take a walk every afternoon. That's my cardio, I guess. I don't really do it for the calroie burn - I guess it's more to get the blood flowing.

[kevin_in_ga]

Originally Posted by jediMaster

Kevin,
Shouldn't your HIIT workout be burning more calories than your steady state workout if both done for the same amount of time? Your numbers say you burned the same number of calories. I'm confused.

Let me clarify - just think that each step you take on the elliptical burns a set amount of calories, and all the machine does is add up the steps for that specific incline and resistance level.

In scenario 1 (SS) I typically hold a pace of 150 steps per minute * 30 minutes = 4500 steps.

In scenario 2 (HIIT), I am alternating between high step rate (240/min) for 1 min and very low step rate (~100/min) for 3 min, so after 30 minutes I end up at near the same number of total steps as in the above example.

Therefore, the elliptical display reads roughly the same number of calories burned. But by measuring heart rate activity, I get a more accurate estimate of my personal effort - I find that the elliptical overestimates at SS (probably to make the user feel better about how hard they are training), and does not factor in the very high heart rates seen in HIIT and thus underestimates the total work done in this type of training.

Bottom line - if you want to accurately measure your caloric output, get a HRM.

[zenpharaohs]

Originally Posted by kevin_in_ga

1. The display does not factor in your heart rate, which is the major determinant of your total caloric burn.


2. On steady state, I might burn 400-500 calories in a 30 minutes session, with my heart rate typically at 145 bpm. Not sweating a lot until near the very end, and never out of breath. The display typically overestimates the actual calories I expend.

3. On HIIT I will burn 400-500 calories in the same 30 minute workout, but I am sweating like a pig and out of breath almost the whole time, and my legs are exhausted at the end. Ironically the display typically underestimates my caloric output.

4. Also, you get the EPOC benefit from the intense cardio, which is also not factored in on the display.

This is all pretty much true.

The way that machines that don't use heart rate for Calories ("indirect calorimetry"), but use work performed, (ergometry/dynamometry), have to estimate Calories you burned is by measuring the Calories of mechanical work you have performed on the machine, and then extrapolating to the Calories you would have to have burned to do that much mechanical work on the machine. Your body is not even close to 100% efficient, since a lot of the Calories you burn go to raising your temperature, circulation, etc. So they multiply the Calories of mechanical work you did on the machine by some factor to estimate the Calories that you burned. Your body is more efficient at low intensity than high intensity.

When a machine uses a fixed intensity independent factor to estimate Calories burned, then it is exactly the situation you describe - the low intensity Calories are overestimated because you are more efficient than the factor used, and the high intensity Calories are underestimated because you are less efficient, etc.