Let’s stop the cardio hysteria!
What if I told you, you do not have to starve yourself and do cardio day in and day out in order to lose weight? As a matter of fact, doing so might actually be hampering your ability to accomplish your goals.
Drastically cutting calories and doing cardio until you are blue in the face, slows down your metabolism. Your body is a machine and it gets more and more efficient the more cardio you do and the more stress you put it under by not consuming vital nutrients.
What does this mean?
It means, the more cardio you do the less calories you burn doing that very cardio. And the slower your metabolism gets.
Your body’s number one mission is to live. When your body is put through a stressful situation like a severe calorie deficit, it develops the ability to complete activities of daily living with less energy. Mass Cardio and overly restrictive diets slow metabolism.
The more effective way to burn fat is to build muscle. No you will not, “Get Buff” or “Bulky”. Quite the opposite actually. Muscle is more dense than fat so building muscle will not only make you appear more slender, but that muscle will work for you day and night (burning fat). Building muscle lowers your bodyfat percentage which increases your metabolism. These two components coupled together, change your body composition, aka make you seem more “toned”.
Still not sold?
What if I told you ditching the endless cardio, and focusing on building strength will make you live longer? That’s right, studies show that people with above average grip strength are more likely to live longer than those with weaker grip strength. Lifting weights may save your life AND help you burn fat.
So give the treadmills, ellipticals, and spin classes a break and get under a barbell. Stop the cardio hysteria! Muscle burns fat!
