2611: [Part 2] Cardio for Weight Loss - Everything You Need to Know by JC Deen of JCD Fitness on Body Composition

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[00:01:39] and be sure to pick the one from Optimal Living Daily. This is Optimal Health Daily, episode 2611, Cardio for Weight Loss, Everything You Need to Know, part 2 by JC Dean of jcdfitness.com. And I'm your narrator, Dr. Neil. Hey there, happy Thursday and welcome back to Optimal Health Daily,

[00:01:59] where I simply read to you from the best health and fitness blogs for free. I cover fitness, nutrition, stress management, weight management, and more. This is kind of like an audiobook, but from a bunch of different authors, and always with permission from the sites,

[00:02:14] and always with a bit of my commentary at the end. Now, today's post is part 2 from yesterday, so if you're new here or skipping around, I'd recommend listening to yesterday's episode first, that was episode 2610. But if you're all caught up, let's jump right in and hear part 2

[00:02:32] and continue optimizing your life. Cardio for Weight Loss, Everything You Need to Know, part 2 by JC Dean of jcdfitness.com. How much cardio for weight loss? There are no hard rules for how much cardio you need to do for fat loss to happen.

[00:02:54] But for my coaching clients, what I often recommend is 2-4 weight training sessions per week and some light activity in the form of brisk walking, hiking, biking, swimming, and so on

[00:03:06] on their off days 2-3 days per week. At the end of the day, no cardio is required but adding in some form of movement, even if it's just walking, can help you burn more calories and lose fat more

[00:03:18] efficiently and quickly. Is fasted cardio better than fed cardio? No. Do I need to be in the fat burning zone? There is this so-called fat burning zone and many people for the longest time would

[00:03:32] make a recommendation to perform cardio in this fat burning zone in order to be most effective. And while it's not completely wrong, it sort of misses the big picture about how we actually

[00:03:43] burn fat over time. At any given moment during rest, your body is burning fat for energy. Even during movements like walking, biking, and general activities like gardening, walking up the stairs, or getting your mail, you're burning fat. It's only when we do

[00:03:59] high-intensity activities like weight training or sprinting that we burn glycogen, which is stored carbohydrates in our muscle cells specifically. The fat burning zone tends to be somewhere within 50% to 70% of your maximum heart rate, meaning that you should aim to keep your heart rate

[00:04:18] at a certain level. And the way you'd calculate this is by subtracting your age from 220 and then multiplying that number, which is your estimated maximum heart rate, by 0.5 to 0.7 for the range. For example, let's say you're 25 years old. Start with 220 and subtract your age from it. So, 220

[00:04:43] minus, in this case, 25 equals 195. 195 represents your maximum heart rate. Now, to get a range for the fat burning zone, we take our maximum heart rate and multiply that by 0.5 and then we multiply

[00:05:02] that maximum heart rate by 0.7, which again gives us that range. So, 0.5 times our maximum heart rate, which we calculated was 195 for a 25-year-old person, equals 97.5. Then, to get the top of the range,

[00:05:21] 195, our maximum heart rate, times 0.7, the higher end of the range, equals 136.5. So, for the sake of this example, the so-called fat burning zone for a 25-year-old person would be to achieve a heart

[00:05:38] rate of somewhere between 97 and 136 beats per minute. But at the end of the day, this doesn't matter. At all. Seriously. This is not worth worrying about because our bodies burn fat all the time. What's most important is the caloric deficit for fat loss. Period. End of story.

[00:05:58] Sure, macros matter. Counting macros properly matters and weight training helps you maintain muscle, but a caloric deficit will take care of fat loss. So, don't worry about trying to maintain a certain heart rate. Just focus on getting your training sessions and cardio sessions completed.

[00:06:14] It's not worth tracking your heart rate and trying to stay within a certain range. Note, just by taking a walk or training with weights, you'll find yourself somewhere between the 50-70% fat burning range for most of that activity anyways. Another not so important idea

[00:06:31] are the so-called fat burning foods. There are literally no foods that burn fat. It's the act of eating less food that actually burns body fat. Why you should avoid overdoing cardio.

[00:06:43] Remember, with a goal of fat loss, cardio training is only a tool. If it makes sense to go on an extra long walk every morning to burn some extra calories, do it. But don't overextend yourself

[00:06:54] with extra running, biking or intervals if it doesn't fit well into your current training program. Here are a few reasons why you should avoid overdoing cardio training. 1. It's not sustainable. If you try to do extra cardio during the week in order to burn off some

[00:07:11] calories to make your fat loss progress happen more quickly, it's only a matter of time that you have to cut off the extra sessions. The same goes for weight training. If you plan to do a 6

[00:07:22] day per week program but can only realistically fit in 4 training sessions per week, it's only a matter of time before you aren't able to commit to the sessions and feel like a failure. 2. It makes you more prone to injury. Lots of cardio sessions outside of light walking or

[00:07:38] bicycling can cause more wear and tear on your body and cause you to be more likely to develop an injury either from overuse or having an accident that causes an immediate injury, such as spraining an ankle or knee or pulling a muscle and so on.

[00:07:54] And 3. Lots of cardio and activity in general raises stress hormones. You've likely heard of a hormone called cortisol. You've also likely heard about how bad it is. But in reality, hormones

[00:08:06] are neither bad or good. We only run into problems when they get out of balance. It's been shown that too much high intensity exercise like weight training, sprinting and long runs can cause a spike in cortisol if done too frequently. Studies have shown that lower intensity activity like

[00:08:22] walking can help reduce cortisol levels so if you're already training hard 3-4 days per week, doing some extra walking would be your best variation of cardio. Don't use it for a quick fix. It's easy to get caught up in the

[00:08:37] I need results yesterday mindset but it's totally unrealistic and will lead to burnout and a lack of progress. Oftentimes, I've seen people ramp up their output going from zero cardio to 5 runs a

[00:08:50] week on top of their weight training. This is not the way to go. Cardio is only a tool to be used when necessary. And if you don't particularly like long bouts of cardio such as running or bicycling,

[00:09:02] then you'll want to consider something you can easily do and stick to. Remember that training and cardio are means to an end but they're also a means of maintenance. There will be times when you need

[00:09:13] to do more and times when you need to do less. At the end of the day, you must ask yourself, is what I'm doing sustainable and realistic over the long term? If your answer is no, it's time to rethink the approach. Can you still lose weight without cardio?

[00:09:31] Finally, yes. You can lose weight without running or jogging or high intensity intervals. What matters most is your ability to create a caloric deficit through nutrition and your preferred method of activity, be it cardio or weights or any other activity you enjoy. Many of my clients

[00:09:48] lose weight without specific cardio other than some walking on their off days. You just listened to part 2 of the post titled, Cardio for Weight Loss, Everything You Need to Know by JC Dean, of jcdfitness.com and I'll be right back with my commentary.

[00:10:08] Dr. Neil here for my commentary. So you may be wondering then, where did the idea of burning fat in that heart rate fat zone come from? If it doesn't really

[00:10:19] seem to be helpful for actually burning fat, then why does this heart rate range exist? Why is it on almost every treadmill, bike and elliptical at the gym? It's because the body does tend to use

[00:10:32] fat as fuel when we perform rhythmic lower intensity activities. Just as JC described in today's article, when we're performing low intensity walking, bicycling, rowing and so on, which are rhythmic, the body will tend to use fat to supply energy for the movement.

[00:10:49] But just because the body is using fat for fuel doesn't mean it's using body fat for fuel. We forget that we have fat floating around in our bloodstream all the time. So the body may not be

[00:11:02] burning body fat for energy. Instead, it's probably using the fat floating around in our bloodstream for energy. But as JC said, eventually if we stick to our exercise routines and keep our calories in

[00:11:17] check, the body will eventually do what we want it to, turn to burning body fat for energy. All right, that'll do it for today. Thank you so much for being here and listening every day.

[00:11:29] I hope you're having a great week and I'll see you back here tomorrow for our usual Friday Q&A and where your optimal life awaits!