Too Much Cardio Is Making You Skinny Fat, Weak And A Hormonal Wreck

Go to any gym across the country, you will find people doing cardio for fat loss. With their running shoes on, they hop on to the treadmill and run like they woke up in a 'Jurassic Park' sequel, with a T-Rex trying to bite their knickers off. One of the major misconceptions that plague the fitness world is that cardio helps in burning fat. Now this statement is not incorrect in its entirety. Cardio along with weight training and a caloric deficit can help you burn some extra calories, which in turn will burn some more fat, but doing cardio in isolation in the hopes of burning fat is completely wrong. The only way to lose weight is to be in a caloric deficit. Period! © Youtube Your body needs a certain amount of calories for you to maintain your current weight. If you eat more than the amount of calories needed, you'll gain weight. If you eat less, you'll lose weight. It's as simple as that! Now, when you are trying to lose weight, what you are actually trying to lose is fat and not muscle. To lose fat instead of muscle when on a caloric deficit, you need to give your muscles a reason to stay on your frame, and that reason is provided by weight training. Weight training stimulates your muscles and along with optimum protein intake, you'll retain muscle mass when in a deficit. But Then How Does Cardio Help In Fat Loss? We have established above that being in a calorie deficit is the only way to lose fat. But the caloric deficit doesn't have to come entirely from your diet. This is where cardio comes in. Adding some cardio can help you burn more calories, which can be very helpful when you are on a diet and can't cut anymore calories. For example - If your total deficit is 500 calories, 400 of those calories can be cut from your diet and the remaining 100 can be burned doing cardio. This way you can eat more food while keeping your deficit intact. How much cardio should you do? You should start with a maximum of 1/3rd of the total time you put into weight training per week. If you put in an hour of weight training, you should do a 20 min cardio session. The timing or frequency of cardio can be changed according to the goals .Too much cardio has shown to be a hindrance to muscle growth and the body's hormonal activities. A frequency of 3-5 days per week is usually good enough. However this frequency can be adjusted as different people have different goals. Cardio should be implemented to suit a person's goals, not keeping in mind how fat he is. So, a competitive athlete who has to step on stage might have to do 6-7 days of cardio, whereas a regular person needs about 3 days. © CyclingNews Try to maintain a balance of both weight training and cardio in your routine but never overdo cardio to accelerate fat loss. It just doesn't happen that way. Nutrition and training is the key. Nav Dhillon is an online coach with GetSetGo Fitness, an online fitness company that helps people with fitness goals right from losing weight to competing in bodybuilding shows. Nav is an avid bodybuilding enthusiast and heads the NABBA (National amateur bodybuilders association) as a General Secretary. This innate passion and position has helped him work with a lot of bodybuilders to help them take their physique at the next level. He also has a lovely pet called Buster whom he enjoys playing with in his free time. You can reach Nav on nav.dhillon@getsetgo.fitness to take your fitness and physique to the next level.