Some things I’ve learned throughout the years that may be useful to some people:
- if your aim is to use a lot of energy, dialing down the intensity significantly and working for a longer time is the way to go
- basically all cardio machines at the gym are going to be boring as all hell, going outside and doing activities is a lot more fun
- baking in activity into your day-to-day routines is very helpful. Transporting yourself by biking, walking, taking transit, a mix of all of the above makes a large difference
- cardio as a means of losing weight has a downside in that vigorous exercise provokes a lot of hunger. make sure to combine with small sustainable changes in diet for best results
I’ve learned that cardio can work, but there’s also a lot of truth to that “you can’t outrun a bad diet” saying. Like you said, your body can subtly undermine your work by making you more hungry, and it can also cause you to be less active in between exercise without realizing it.
Last year I cut out 95% of all junk food and snacking, started eating more lean protein (like chicken), and made sure to cut out ultra processed foods where I could (i.e. home-cooked meals vs frozen dinners), and without increasing exercise I lost 20 lbs in 2 months. Sometimes it really is the diet that holds you back.
That isn’t a surprise, diet makes a massively bigger difference than exercise, but the real goal needs to be sustainability.
It’s always the diet. Even someone who burns an extra 4000 calories a day can eat themselves into obesity.
That doesn’t mean someone has to starve to lose weight, just watch what they eat, like you did.
That’s a fantastic result, nice job.
My body isn’t subtle in the slightest.
Any amount of work?
We’re starving, we’re starving! Says my body, like the cats who have a still almost full bowl of food.
Stupid meat husk.
Right? (I know it’s not the same) but come on look at all of this fat you can burn! You’re not hungry, you’re lazy, you know, like I want to be.
It’s extremely valuable to get “used to” first-world hunger in modern times.
I used to be the same way. Though after about the first 18 months of “diet and exercise” (self-defined and imposed to a healthy level), I basically stopped caring if I was “hungry”.
First-world hunger is akin to a baby crying because their stomach happened to growl. If you’re ACTUALLY hungry, you feel insanely drained and even crappy food is magnificent.
If you even feel a preference about what to eat, you’re not actually hungry! (is the easiest way to exemplify it)
On top of that, it’s wonderful to train your stomach to be able to go, “oh wait, I’m just empty. I know how to be empty. This is fine.”.
To put it succinctly: The urge to eat is totally different when you genuinely need the nutrition. After you’re used to it, fast food and other high-energy but low nutrition meals are … shockingly unfulfilling.
This is because people diet wrong. You can absolutely gorge yourself on vegetables and still easily run a calorie deficit. People instead try to just eat tiny amounts of calorie dense foods, and that’s what fails, because it leaves you hungry and tired.
Also, taking massive doses of iron supplements (or dark greens) helps a lot.
Also, taking massive doses of iron supplements (or dark greens) helps a lot.
Because of the constipation?
Personally Ive never been able to lose weight except by eating less. Lost 8 pounds backpacking in 5 days once though, was probably atleast a 2k calorie deficit per day.
Personally Ive never been able to lose weight except by eating less.
That’s absolutely the best way to lose weight.
People shouldn’t exercise to lose weight, they should exercise because it’s good for your general physical, mental and emotional health. To lose weight, you eat less.
More than half the reason I ever get any exercise at all is in service of my mental health.
I find physical activity suppresses my appetite, so I tend to lose weight when outdoors just from not thinking about eating as often and not eating as much when I do because I feel full with less.
CI, CO
I can leverage my superpower of laziness and simply not eat all day, a couple of times a week, and lose 30 lbs. It’s way easier þan exercising.
The other thing is that by not eating, your stomach will shrink. Pretty fast too, within a week of eating less your stomach will become smaller and it will become easier to feel full.
So true. It’s weird to see portion sizes I dish up for myself shrink so distinctly and quickly.
I can’t maintain þrough the holiday, þough, so I tend to lose weight around Feb-Apr and keep it off until Nov. It’s not healþy, but 🤷
Losing 8 pounds in 5 days would require a daily deficit of 5,600 calories, so if you ate nothing you would still need to burn 3,600 calories to hit that, and if you’re hiking with a moderate load at a relaxed pace you’d be burning around 500-600 calories and hour, so would need to be hiking for like 7 hours a day AND not eating anything to lose that much weight in that much time…
Yes, sure, but don’t forget all the fun wiggly numbers that go into things like this. Was it actually 8 pounds, or 7.5? Was he flush with water when he weighed beforehand and dehydrated afterwards? Who knows.
Don’t underestimate the scale-moving power of a good dump, either.
Yeah that checks out. I looked up that 3500 calorie number after I said that and realised I had underestimated. But hiking 10-15 miles in appalachia with a thirty pound pack on a 1500 calorie diet (yeah I just brought nuts and a freeze dried meal for each day) would actually be closer to a 4k calorie deficit a day. It might have been less than 8 pounds too, depending on conditions when I weighed before and after. Your body weight can change a few pounds in a day just based on how much you’ve consumed and haven’t ejected yet.
basically all cardio machines at the gym are going to be boring as all hell, going outside and doing activities is a lot more fun
I have health issues so I can no longer go biking outdoors, but I use the app KinoMap (like Peloton but without brand lock-in) to view POV video of bike trips and the app adjusts resistance over BT according to the road topology.
I pick out a map/video and internet radio or a playlist from the country it is recorded. It makes exercise much easier and more fun for me and is way more engaging than staring at numbers on a display.
They also have videos for running trails and rowing and additional social media stuff that I am not interested in.
That sounds like the most fun you can get with an indoor bike, and I’m happy you’re able to do It despite the health issues.
I will concede that the one type of indoor training I could one day get behind would probably be virtual cycling. Maybe one winter when I decide that running in the dark and wet isn’t actually fun. Time will tell.
There are other apps that are more oriented towards racing if that’s your thing and you can get a BT connected trainer for your roadbike.
For me an upright exercise bike is great now and I enjoy doing little mini excursions around the world when I can not travel any more.
baking in activity into your day-to-day routines is very helpful. Transporting yourself by biking, walking, taking transit, a mix of all of the above makes a large difference
basically all cardio machines at the gym are going to be boring as all hell, going outside and doing activities is a lot more fun
Or, alternatively, use the stationary nature of indoor machines to make it less boring. I typically read. Or maybe watch a show or movie.
Outside is great too of course, but bad weather can be hard to overcome depending on where you live.
The boring as hell part can be managed with a smartphone and some movies.
Of course depending on the specific machine. Some are better for it than others.
I prefer elliptical machine as it spreads the load out all across the body and it’s the easiest to manage the load with it to aim for some specific heart rate zones. At the same time i have almost 2(1+1) undistributed hours to watch whatever movie or TV show i want. More peaceful than watching those at home.
Distraction devices tend to be less effective on indoor machines for me personally. I do listen to a bunch of podcasts for outdoor runs/bike rides though, and find them to be an essential part of the process
even going for a walk is probably as effective
I tried to up the effectiveness of my walks with a weighted vest, but my god do those things make you look like a douchebag.
Plus I’m a white guy with transition lenses who doesn’t like getting a sunburn on my neck, and appreciate the utility of cargo shorts.
So I’m a white guy, in sunglasses, a backwards hat, and cargo short; that, to me, just screams ICE agent, which I do not want to be associated with.
I need to zhuzh up my wardrobe with bright colors or something.
Increasing weight is actually not very effective at burning more calories, you’d be better off just adding like 10 minutes of time
b-but my time is valuable! I need to rewatch movies I’ve seen a dozen times already and play a dumb merging game on my phone!
Thing to try: Get a bike trainer, subscribe to Zwift, and play a game an hour or so a day.
It could happen one day! I’m already getting more than sufficient training, and adding 1 hour of training a day on top of my current volume would be actively counterproductive.
If you’re training for cycling, increased volume of low intensity is rarely counterproductive, unless you’re riding like 20+ weekly hours. Granted, that’s pro level guidance, so who knows for us normies.
vigorous exercise provokes a lot of hunger
I’ve always found the opposite to be true but YMMV. My periods of weight gain have always resulted from eating out of boredom; the cycling I do (25 to 50 miles per day) improves my mental state and I don’t feel the same urge to constantly snack.
Are you doing this volume at high intensity, aka Zone 4/5? It’s a quite significant volume to be doing at that level of vigorous intensity.
But there’s for sure individual differences here. High intensity efforts do provoke hunger for me, but the same may not be true for you!
There’s little to no evidence that cardio excerse leads to weight loss. Groups who restrict calorie intake alway out perform the exercise group in weight loss studies and there’s never any significant difference between 2 groups who both restrict calories but one exercises and the other does not.
It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how we use glycogen for moving around and fat as an emergency reserve. If we remember that we evolved as persistence hunters, it starts to make more sense. I.E. what’s the point in putting on a layer of fat for a winter reserve, if you could accidentally run it off chasing down a meal? Those that could run it off chasing down a meal didn’t survive the hard winters and those that didn’t lived.
The whole idea that you could do cardio to lose weight was invented by food producers to make people think they could treat their diet like a credit card and payback overspending with exercise. That way, we would eat more and they would make more money. It’s also the reason it’s called cardiovascular exercise and not weight-loss excersise.
If we remember that we evolved as persistence hunters
Some fun facts: Grover Krantz – the guy who first posited the “running man” theory – was better-known as a staunch believer in the existence of Bigfoot. Also, his skeleton and the skeleton of his favorite dog are on display at the Smithsonian for some reason.
Personally, I can’t believe anybody could possibly believe in Bigfoot. It’s obviously just a Yeti in a gorilla suit.
The caloric calculation is only based on the effort at time of exercise, you continue to burn afterwards for several hours as muscles recover and heal -all that takes energy, and energy only comes from burning.
Yeah and don’t forget that the newly built muscle needs more energy as well just to maintain.
I have to eat painfully much… (I’m quite active, and even when not I eat a looot more than others…)
You gain muscle at the gym.
You lose weight in the kitchen.
But… being active overall does help. Just cycling to places instead of driving can easily add up to 1000+ calories per week. Depending on where you live, it might not even use that much more time. And then there’s the possibility to have active holidays and to walk more. And the great thing is, you can still go to the gym and do sports in addition to all of this.
Actually the more I have read into what is a healthy active routine (more on the athletic side of things, because I have overloading issues) Cycling to work, is like the perfect active rhythm for the body.
Especially when you do it fast (VO2 max).
The body needs time to recover and needs just little stimulus for growth/maintenance (so marathon is not good for your body, it’s just wear and tear), and after ~6-8 hours, needs stimulus for further growth again (so cycling back from work).
I have always wondered why I was comparatively muscular to others (for some part it’s likely genetics), I think it was/is because I cycle like a complete madman to work (well… VO2 max), because I’m an adrenaline junkie.
I just recently discovered that this is actually quite healthy (well not in the casualty sense obviously, but for cardio and general health).
If you’re interested I can recommend this talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anB-UMXIDQA
Yep, it’s all cumulative. I think the “weight loss is in the kitchen” advice helps those who don’t understand weight loss is a function of net calories, so start exercising and eat more because they think exercise somehow magically makes weight go away. If only I had a nickel for every time I heard “weight lifting converts fat into muscle” over the years…
My aunt is a great example. She started doing daily walks to lose weight but picked up a “healthy protein smoothie” from a local coffee shop on the way home. She slowly gained weight because they were more like milkshakes and easily had 500+ calories per serving.
As someone else mentioned, humans are hilariously good at cardio. And the more you do it the more efficient you become at it, which means less calories burned.
Then there’s NEAT (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) which is unconscious movements you perform during the day. This accounts for a huge number of calories you burn during the day. Both exercise and cutting calories reduce NEAT, especially at you get leaner.
This isn’t to say you shouldn’t cut calories or exercise. Reducing caloric intake absolutely works, you just need to be aware that your body will adjust to it, and that you should take breaks from dieting occasionally to bring your daily estimated calorie burn back up. Exercise should be thought of as something that improves health with a side benefit of some caloric burn.
Just my opinion.
Please. You don’t use exercise to lose weight. That’s what bootleg weight loss drugs are for.
Do cocaine
You got it, boss
Humans are hilariously efficient at running. Skipping a candy bar is easier than running two miles.
The line I like is “you can’t outrun your fork.” Weight loss is 99% about the kitchen, bodybuilding is probably about 75% the kitchen.
And also “six packs are made in the kitchen, not the gym.” Everyone’s got abs, you just can’t always see em!
Speak for your fucking self. I run about as well as a 65 year old tractor left out in the sun
Put the candy bar at the end of a track and I’ll run to get the candy.
It’s actually infuriating how energy efficient the human body is…in peace time anyways.
The emphasis when I was younger that exercise was needed to lose weight. Now the emphasis is shifting that eating better and lighter does with exercise an aid in he situation.
Exercise is for building and maintaining muscle and cardio health. The only way it helps in losing weight is that muscles are more energy intensive than fat to maintain.
Yes, specifically:
Excess activity from your baseline will cause excess caloric output and can result in weight loss. BUT, human bodies are quite adaptable and what used to be excess activity can easily become your new baseline.
Absolutely, 75-300 minutes of cardio-vascular exercise is good for almost anyone, even if they need to gain weight. The same can be said for hitting every muscle group with resistance training twice a week, to a lesser extent. (Do both if you can, but do the cardio if you can only do one.) EDIT: Neither of these activities has to be done expressly for “exercise” – they are just as good for you when they are part of your work or play or any other purpose.
The exercise is not (primarily) for weight loss. It’s so your body doesn’t feel like a useless sack of potatoes the whole day. So you’re not out of breath when picking something up from the ground. The weight loss is unfortunately primarily achieved in the kitchen.
At least, that’s my experience. But maybe if you used to not move at all it makes a big difference. I lost weight when I changed my diet for the better, and I gain weight whenever I slip up significantly. But when I stopped running 15km per week (for health reasons) I didn’t really gain a significant amount, maybe a kg (accounting for noise). I did become a useless sack if potatoes though, so I’m back in the grind.
I think your experience is correct.
Your body keeps a set calorie usage target that it will adjust to. So over long times it will normalise to using a set amount. New exercise will burn extra energy initially, but you then adjust to doing it.
Diet changes have best effect, exercise is needed to stop you losing muscle mass.
“build it at the gym and show it off in the kitchen”
The only way excercise significantly contributes to weight loss is by building more muscle mass, particularly lean muscle, that burns more calories at rest.
Since your resting metabolism is a bit more than half of the calories you burn in a day, making it larger adds a notable chunk to the “Out” side of “calories in < calories out”, in some cases making it so the out side is capable of being larger than the minimum a person needs to eat to be healthy.By happy coincidence, it also makes it easier to excercise, makes you feel better and be healthier, and helps with awkward panting.
This one hits close to home. I was in great shape the first half-plus of my life. Played sports, swam competitively, did the Marine thing. Always had a reason to want to not be out of shape, mainly so doing things didn’t suck.
Lost reason. Packed some pounds on, maybe 20 or so.
Finally decided about a year and a half ago to start running again, and so now I run like 35-40 miles a week, and every run I see the calories. Run for 45 minutes, burn like 650 calories. Costco has these cookies that I have to avoid seeing, and each cookie is 200 calories, and I can easily eat three, four, five at a clip, with a nice tall glass of milk. And so I’ll run for 90 minutes, and literally offset the benefit entirely in 10 minutes watching Netflix before bed.
It’s not fair. But it is what it is. And so my reason to run is chocolate chip cookies.
for what it’s worth the running is still very good for you even if you aren’t burning fat with calorie deficits
Oh no, for sure. Dropped back to “not overweight,” which is good enough. Feel good. And to assuage the concerns of others, modern running shoes are crazy good, it almost feels like cheating, how soft they are.
Until you injure your knee/spine due to the repetitive impact from the steps that is
That is largely their own fault.
It wouldn’t even be offset if you didn’t run
Yes, it’s WAY easier to avoid eating that 1000kcal burger, than to burn 1000kcal
I don’t get why gym types are only obsessed with weight.
To me the point of regular exercise, especially cardio, is that if I run every day, my body simply doesn’t want to eat the unhealthy food. I can’t run if I’ve eaten a sleeve of Oreos that day. And afterwards my body craves hearty, healthy meals and vegetables.
On the contrary, when I’m going for a long bike ride, I’m literally drinking syrup for fuel and eating high carb snacks.
The carbs are great sources of energy, but aren’t meant for post workout. Just enough to power through a long, multi-hour cardio session and avoid bonking out.
It’s the reward you get to have while doing the work and a healthy meal with whole foods is what you have afterwards. Good to train yourself that the sweets should never be at the end.
For anyone only doing short exercise sessions, absolutely no reason to carb load or fuel on anything other than water and maybe some electrolytes. Especially if weight loss is the goal. Even then, diet should be priority 1 over exercise. That one Oreo could cost you 30 minutes to burn off.
Walking and moving your legs provides crucial pumping action for your body to avoid fluids pooling in your lower body
Walking provides many, many other health benefits too, it’s super important (assuming the person is otherwise not very active).
What if I like fluids pooling in my lower body… ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
That means swelling in your ankles, your groin is the middle not lower.
I think that just means, that you have changed your microbiota to like more healthy stuff (I too just don’t like unhealthy food anymore, but that took years…).
Carbs though are something that you really crave while being active, the muscles want to be fed, whether that happens via Oreos or say more healthy fruits or something like that is a different story.
Part of the trick is finding an exercise that’s actually enjoyable to do so that you don’t care how hard you’re working or how much time has passed. Time is gonna pass extra slow on a treadmill and feel really difficult, if you’re not enjoying it. I find that the bicycle is that sweet spot for me, I do it because it’s fun not because of my health.
I like riding a bmx bike but I’m also pushing 40 so I look like an old crackhead who just stole a kids BMX bike if I do.
In my 30s I lived in Seattle and rode bikes everywhere. I was proud on the day I rode a bmx from the stadium up and over to the other side of Capitol Hill where I lived. It’s only a 3 mile (4.8 km) trip but with a 400 ft (121.9 m) change in elevation.
Awesome. If I saw someone 10 years older than me absolutely tearing up a path in the woods, pushing themselves the way I remember biking for fun, I’d be nothing short of inspired.
I bike 50 miles a day (in summer, at least) and I fucking hate getting passed by the guys that look like they’re in their 80s. I just tell myself they’re on an e-bike, which might even be true sometimes.
If it’s something you both enjoy and that is good for your health, you need to double-ignore any “haters”. They aren’t going to live in your head with your future body, so fuck 'em.
Part of the trick is finding an exercise that’s actually enjoyable to do so that you don’t care how hard you’re working or how much time has passed.
That’s why I take an edible and then run the treadmill.
Whatever works!
I wouldn’t mind biking if I didn’t live in a city. Years ago back when I was going to college, I decided to ride my bike the one mile to school and made it about 2 weeks before crashing to avoid being hit by a car.
If I didn’t live in America.
Ftfy.
Also, it isn’t better in an American countryside, unless you like semis blasting past at 55mph giving you zero room while you ride on a nearly non-existent shoulder. I’ve been there. It isn’t fun, though it does get the adrenaline pumping. Also, things are way further apart so it’s a lot more biking to get anywhere. God bless the US of A.
Before someone says “biking is also bad in XYZ location:” Of course there are also other places in the world that don’t have bike infrastructure, but America is kinda the most famous for it, especially considering the country’s wealth.
I definitely agree with you about riding on country roads, but I love in the PNW and was thinking more about being closer to mountain bike trails out in the woods as far away from cars as I can be.
There are also some cities around that have good bike infrastructure where they’re at least common enough in the city that people watch out for them or even better there are dedicated bike paths up on the curb so you’re not just separated from traffic by a white strip of paint on the ground.
I’ve gotta say, biking in NW Louisiana / E Texas was fucking fantastic. I could do 60 mile rides on country roads and not see a human being the entire time. And there were only a couple of months every year where the heat would kill you.
Ahh, yeah, logging roads and the likes, suuuper rural stuff. And yeah, I live in Spokane, and the bike infrastructure is fragmented, but not as bad as you’d think.
The problem with logging roads is the logging trucks.
Source: I live on a logging road that I thought would be a lot more quiet. How many damn tress are up that there hill?
I’ve never found an exercise I enjoy. The closest I got was DDR, but the home pads suck and the arcades cost too much.
I do the treadmill because I can let my mind and hand set the pace. If I’m on a bike, I won’t get my HR into zone 2, because I’m lazy.
Ever try a rowing machine?
I do rows for resistance/strength training, but I don’t think I’ve ever used a rowing machine for cardio.
I have a Concept2 and it’s great. Once you get going it’s almost meditative
Try a workout program based on some of the college rowing programs. I personally love rowing because it is way easier to switch between ‘I’m going to die’ mode and ‘nice, easy rest’ meters. Running and biking just don’t have the fun hand pulling that rowing does.
The program that my crewmates are following is from a guy that does 12+ workouts a week. It’s just insane (and he acknowledges it in his explanation of it: plan, remarks on plan)
You might find the fun in switching between the hard and soft meters, or you might find it’s like the bike and not for you.
I have an exercise bike at home, so I’ve taken to dragging it into the living room and playing video games while I do an hour of zone 2. I end up finishing my hour before I even realize it; plus, trying not to get curbstomped in Elden Ring is incredibly conducive to keeping your heart rate up.
I usually watch recorded episodes of Antiques Roadshow while riding my exercycle. I have no idea why that works but it does.
Same same same. Once I fell in love with cycling it just became something I do. It’s only exercise incidentally. Not like I’m super fit or anything but I am healthy and I have a hobby I enjoy that is also good for me.
If you haven’t found something like this for you, there isn’t anything wrong with you, you just haven’t found it yet.
I love biking, but the ride to work kinda sucks. Either I have to turn the 2 mile ride into 8 miles to avoid cars, or I have to ride in a narrow bike lane on the side of a 4 lane road. I do dream of better infrastructure.
What has been working awesome is riding the tandem to our weekly trivia watering hole, it’s almost entirely through suburbs and on Spokane’s incredible Centennial trail. I also don’t mind if we don’t take the most efficient route, as it’s all for leisure. Of course I’m probably still at a net gain on calories haha, it’s a 4 mile round trip, fairly level, and that just ain’t enough to cover two beers and a burger.
Won’t lie that 8 mile detour sounds like a rather nice option. You’d be surprised how quick you can get used to that kind of distance.
That’s a good point. It’s definitely hard to get motivated to spend 45 minutes cycling to work in the morning when I could just hop in the car and be there in under 10. If there were some magical way to drive to work and cycle home, I’d do that in a heartbeat. I’m always in more of a cycling mood in the afternoon, once I’m more awake.
People must be made so different. Exercise is the main factor in my size & weight. Like, even getting a job where I have to go up the stairs makes a difference.
And remember that there are so many benefits to exercise, beyond body shape. Cardio is so good for your heart and helps ease anxiety, lifting is so good for your bones, yoga helps keep you resilient & mobile so you don’t break when you fall down, and helps with balance.
All of them help offset all the sitting most of us have to do at work.
I’m grateful that my work involves running around with children, lifting them up, spinning them, etc. I get a bit of cardio and strength training while making money.
Except today. It was hot as balls and the air conditioner wasn’t fully working. I produced enough sweat sitting still to put a gym bro to shame. At one point a kid was spinning around on a spinner toy and I sat next to her just so I could feel the breeze it made, like a little fan.
Yeah but how many jobs are available as a professional child abductor? This doesn’t seem feasible for most people.
Damn, that was good. I probably should’ve phrased things differently, haha.
You’ve just gotta be the change you want to see in the world
You gotta think bigger, start a business, be your own boss
It is easier to limit excess calories than to burn them with exercise, for sure.
But I do the recommended 30 minutes of “moderate exercise” and I see 200 calories, so it is maybe not entirely as dismal as this?
I’m 265 lbs. and if the treadmill takes that into account I see about 400 calories down 30 minutes into my 5k.
BUT, the saying I’ve heard is “you can’t outrun your fork” and it seems to be true. (For example, I quite enjoy eating 2000 calories at a buffet in 30 minutes… if I’m going to get back down to a reasonable weight, I have to DON’T DO THAT.)
It is actually harder this time, because before the rapist-in-chief got re-elected, I was down to 220 and could finish a 5k in <28 minutes.
It’s a struggle like most of life… cardio and weights and all that can keep you fit, but to actually lose weight it’s all in the kitchen. The saying is “abs are made in the kitchen not the gym” cause your body is a machine for gaining weight not losing it. Biologically, if you’re gaining weight your body is fucking winning.
building muscle through resistance training is the best way to get your body to burn more calories. cardio is exercise for heart and lungs
I had no special goal for exercise other than to reduce “all cause mortality” and my internet research steered me toward 30 minutes of moderate cardio. But I have also heard that strength/cardio are interrelated.
i said cardio is exercise for heart and lungs- speaking less broadly, the better shape your heart and lungs are in, the better you can be at resistance training; you’ll have more stamina and faster recovery, and things in general will be easier to do (walking, stairs, keeping up with children). resistance training makes the rest of your body stronger, so that things in general get easier, like lifting things etc. you can get away with only doing cardio or only doing resistance but best to do a bit of both, i think. but you should also train a bit for flexibility.
you can run/row/elliptical yourself skinny (not without eating healthy) but you cant run yourself jacked, you need to build muscle. unless you’re a sprinter, i guess
Yeah I just saw my doctor yesterday and they said that cardio is great but if I want to feel my energy level improve I need to do strength training. So that’s another factor to put on the list. Fortunately they said that 10 minutes would be enough, because 30 mins cardio, 30 mins strength, and ideally 30 mins flexibility like you mentioned would be awesome but ain’t nobody got time for all that.
This is what I’ve read, the calories-over-time that muscle burns “for free” outweighs any weight loss you can get from exercise. Cardio is more for escaping melee combat
Lol that’s hilarious, and also lowkey why I always make sure I can run at least one mile flat out
People see that and think: wow exercise is pointless, instead of, maybe it’s weird to eat a 1200kcal meal at mcdonalds
