Why Cardio Alone Doesn’t Cut Fat

Losing weight using cardio and abs exercises is not enough to get rid of pounds in the midsection. Lifting reasonably heavy weights, perhaps, is the most excellent idea to drop weight on that particular area in the body.

Most fitness trainers are promoting cardio exercises in order to burn those excess calories. However, most people didn’t know that it is best to be paired with weight training. The reason for this is whenever you tried losing body fat; the fat will be reduced throughout the body, not just on that particular area that you are working.

Here’s the big picture:

Our bodies need a certain amount of calories all through the day so we could perform and work well and more importantly to maintain muscle. Our muscles are going to normalize our metabolism. Your metabolism is going to be the amount of calories you burn at rest during the day. Currently, this is where muscle comes in. The muscle verifies your metabolism. A pound of muscle can burn anywhere up to 50 calories a day depending on its physical condition or healthiness. The additional muscle you have, the more calories you will burn throughout the day. This is known as your basal metabolic rate, an anticipated amount of calories you burn throughout the day. If you don’t take in enough calories the whole time, your body will have to get the nutrients it needs from somewhere. If you were to choose between eating fat or meat, what would you eat? That is the best example why we need calories too.

Let me say again and again, calories are essential because this is where the nutrients from your muscle, and makes your muscle lose its mass and dimension. After a while, it will disappear and make the scale go down. Your metabolism can drop as much as 50 calories for every pound of muscle you lose.

To get the right amount of calories and nutrition that you need, a well-prepared meal moreover is the trick to keep your body burning calories or keeping your metabolism moving.

“An effortless method to appreciate this is to think of your body as an old furnace that needs wood for fuel. The wood epitomizes the food. To turn on the furnace, you must put wood in it, right? The wood will burn for a few hours, but in order to remain the furnace never-endingly, you must add more wood. The same technique goes for the body. If there isn’t any food to invigorate or uplift the body, your metabolism becomes sluggish. If you are to eat every two and a half to three hours—four being the most—you will keep your metabolism persistently functioning. Five to six small meals should do the trick.”

Also as a reminder, carbs are good for you, particularly after a workout (with strength training, of course!). Any work out over about 45 minutes can be long enough to totally break up your carb or glycogen storage. Glycogen is what carbs are stored in the body. It is stored in muscles and organs. After an intense cardio session, have you ever noticed that your muscles are flat or you feel thinner? That isn’t just from sweating out fluids. It is also from using your energy storage. This is where the whole low carb diet thing came about.

After a day of reducing carbs, you will absolutely lose one to two pounds, and this is commonly from water. Not only you did lose heaviness, but you also feel thinner. That’s because you’re eating up your muscles of glycogen. Carbs will keep your muscles hydrated, making you feel like your muscles are swollen. So you see, cutting carbs will lessen your performance physically and mentally. Therefore be sure to eat some carbs since it is spend for brain’s performance too.

If people tell you that they are sensitive into eating carbs, don’t believe it, they just eat too many carbs and move too little. I say eat carbs and keep your muscles full. Fat is the problem and not the carbs. When you don’t move, the fat stays, and your muscles will continually inflate and deflate.

I know I’ve said a lot of times that carbs are detrimental especially if you are consuming more that what you are burning. What I want you to know is that everything should be in moderation - too many carbs are bad, but so are too much of anything.

If you are not sure on what to eat, here’s a menu for a starter - start by adding a carb during breakfast and lunch and then two small, healthy snacks in between lunch and dinner. Snacks can be shake or coolers (fruits and veggies are great combination). You can also try adding some nuts in your meal. Remember, some fats are good for you so don’t fret. The body needs fat for certain things, and you shouldn’t withdraw your body of it. As a general rule of thumb, to help portion meals, I recommend having a small amount of protein with each meal with a serving of carbs or a protein and a serving of fat. It will balance out to about the same amount of calories. If you do a fruit or almonds by itself, that is ok to start. It is a step in the right direction.