There are many misconceptions about the role that cardio should play in the fat loss process.
Cardio can help you improve the function of your heart and lungs, it can help increase your endurance and stamina, and when used correctly it can also help you burn fat. If you’re doing cardio the wrong way, you can actually be hurting your weight loss progress rather than helping it.
Today I want to go over a few cardio myths that are slowing down your progress and potentially even causing you to gain fat or lose muscle, which is exactly the opposite of what you’re probably doing cardio for, to begin with.
Simply Increasing Your Cardio Will Make You Lose Weight
One of the core myths is that all types of cardio are effective for fat loss. This simply is not true and there’s lots of evidence to support this. For example, a meta-analysis of 14 studies with a grand total of 1,847 overweight and obese participants evaluated if cardio benefits weight loss. And the conclusion was that “isolated aerobic exercise is not an effective weight loss therapy for these patients.”
Now I know that may seem strange. After all, cardio burns calories, and since fat loss is mainly about being in a calorie deficit, then cardio should help… right? Well, it’s not so simple. One downside of cardio is that it causes constrained energy expenditure. This means burning calories through cardio tends to lower your general activity levels and energy expenditure throughout the day, which often counteracts the calories burned from the cardio itself.
Your body burns a lot of calories throughout the day when you’re not exercising. This is known as non-exercise activity thermogenesis or NEAT, and NEAT uses up a good chunk of calories. Due to constrained energy expenditure, however, your body will look for shortcuts to save calories. This limits the effectiveness of using cardio strictly for the purpose of fat loss.
Aside from that, many people believe that if they do cardio, they can eat much more food, but as I’m sure many of you know, you can’t outrun a bad diet.
Cardio is More Effective for Fat Loss Than Resistance Training
The next myth that many beginners fall for is this idea that cardio is more effective for fat loss than resistance training. It is true that incorporating both resistance training and some cardio into your workout routine can be very effective, but cardio-only based programs have many drawbacks.
When comparing cardio only programs to resistance training programs, resistance training tends to be more effective, especially over the long term. This is largely because, unlike, it doesn’t cause constrained energy expenditure. This constrained energy expenditure makes you compensate for the calories you burned during your cardio workout by reducing your physical activity throughout the day.
These are little changes that you might not even notice, like not having the energy to walk your dog, or sitting and relaxing when you would normally be moving around, or even simply fidgeting less throughout the day. Even though this may not sound like a big deal, when your body is trying to save energy it is very effective at doing so and cardio pushes your body to save energy.
Resistance training appears to do the opposite, so it facilitates non-exercise activity thermogenesis. This is particularly true on non-exercise days, which may lead to more sustainable adaptations in response to an exercise program. On top of that, you burn about the same number of calories during a resistance training session as you do during a cardio session.
That being the case, resistance training is just as effective at burning calories, and, unlike cardio, lifting weights also helps prevent muscle loss while on a diet, which not only helps you look better when you’re done dieting but it also helps support your metabolism, ultimately helping you keep the fat off.
Fasted Cardio Increases Fat Loss
This next cardio myth isn’t necessarily going to cause weight gain, but you should still know that according to the latest evidence, fasted cardio is not actually better for fat loss than doing your cardio after you already ate. For a while, it was believed that since insulin levels are really low first thing in the morning, skipping breakfast and keeping them low while doing cardio should enable you to burn more fat.
This may seem to make sense since an overnight fast while sleeping reduces your glycogen levels so your body would be more likely to burn fat for fuel instead of glycogen. Simply put, it would burn fat instead of carbohydrates since your stomach would be empty. The truth is there’s no difference in fat loss results between fed and fasted cardio.
Total Calories Burned Counts
We can see that this is the case in a number of studies. In one of these studies they split the participants into two groups and both groups maintained a daily calorie deficit of 500 calories. The only difference between the groups was that one group would do three hours of fasted cardio per week while the other group performed the same amount of cardio but in a fed state. Ultimately the results showed that both groups did lose a significant amount of fat after four weeks, but there was no difference between the groups.
In other words, fasted cardio and fed cardio were equally as effective for fat loss. A systematic review and meta-analysis concluded that fasted compared to fed cardio does not increase the amount of weight and fat mass loss. Weight loss and fat loss from exercise is more likely to be enhanced by creating a meaningful calorie deficit over a period of time rather than exercising in a fasted or a fed state.
You Can Eat Whatever You Want if You Do a Lot of Cardio
Another huge cardio mistake is believing that if you do enough cardio you can eat whatever you want. This is not true. You can’t outrun a bad diet. Many people believe that by simply adding cardio to their routine they’ll automatically lose fat faster than if they focused on dieting alone. They feel that they have the green light to over-consume or consume food that is too calorie-dense.
Whenever you want to reduce calories you could either increase the amount of exercise that you perform or you could reduce the amount of food that you eat. Sometimes adding in some cardio can be the best option if you don’t want to reduce your calories any further, but you should also know that you can burn just as much, if not more, fat by simply focusing on what you eat without doing any cardio at all.
This was shown in a study designed to compare the effects of maintaining a specific calorie deficit either through diet alone or diet combined with cardio. Both groups maintained the same calorie deficit throughout the study and sure enough body mass and body fat decreased significantly in both groups, but there was no significant difference between them.
It’s All About Calorie Deficits
Put simply, given the same calorie deficit you’ll lose the same amount of weight regardless of whether you do cardio or not. Energy balance alone determines almost all the changes to the number that you see on your scale, so even if you do a lot of cardio but you’re still not in a calorie deficit you’re not going to lose weight, no matter how hard you train.
If you’re eating so much that it puts you into a calorie surplus even if you’re doing a significant amounts of cardio you’ll end up gaining weight rather than losing it. Always remember that cardio can’t make up for a terrible diet.
A Parting Thought From DigEnet
Though this post deals with damaging cardio myths we are not implying that cardio should be eliminated from your routine. Cardio has a purpose. It can improve cardiovascular performance, increase endurance, and boost stamina. If combined with proper nutrition it may aid in the creation of a calorie deficit. This condition is what truly leads to weight reduction. Be sure to educate yourself about this process to maximize your time and your results.