Cardio exercise is basically any exercise that is going to raise your heart rate and force you to breathe harder for an extended period of time. Cardio exercise has many benefits apart from weight loss. You will increase your stamina and your ability to go on for longer by doing cardio. It will improve the health of your heart, and it will improve the ability of your lungs to the point where your body can receive more oxygen more easily.
The more oxygen you can get into your body, the more energy you will have. Cardio will also have a positive effect on your body's abilities to cope with stress. Cardio exercise can be performed through various methods such as brisk walking, jogging, running, cycling, swimming, using a stepper and so on. The method will depend on your preference. While engaged in cardio exercise you will without doubt burn calories.However this will come to a halt shortly after finshing cardio.
If you want greater benefits and greater results than there is something that you need to do along with your cardio exercise. This method is to start weight training. Most of the population is unaware of how valuable training with weights can be when it comes to losing weight successfully. When you are weight training, your metabolism gets a huge boost. Not only does it burn calories while you are training, it continues to burn calories for many hours after you have stopped training.
As we get older we naturally start losing muscle and in later life this can cause problems with joints, bones and our abilities to lose weight. So it's important that we do what we can not only to keep muscle but to increase it where we can. Weight training is not just about bodybuilding or power lifting. All types of athletes and sports people use weight training in their routines, and they are not all body builders and power lifters.
When you only do cardio, you will lose weight. However much of this weight will not just be in the form of fat, you will lose muscle as well. This is something that really needs to be avoided. The fact is that the more muscle you have on your body, the more calories you will burn. Your body often considers muscle as a bit of a luxury, as it needs to use lots of calories to keep the muscle on your frame. When you cut back on calories and start cardio, your body will try to get rid of muscle because it is calorie expensive. This can actually slow down your abilities to lose weight.
Weight training has many benefits and should be an important part of a weight loss program.
Weight training will make you stronger. It will allow your body to burn more calories. It will offset the natural muscle loss that comes with age. It will make you look better. It will protect your bones and joints. It will keep your body firm and toned. You will feel more confident within yourself.
Throughout time a strong physique has received respect.
As you can see weight loss is only one benefit you will receive from weight training. Everyone should have some sort of weight training routine in their exercise program because the benefits of it are too numerous to ignore.
Weight training doesn't have to mean grunting and groaning in a gym. If you have not trained with weights before or haven't trained for a long time then you can start with bodyweight exercise. Weight training is about pushing or pulling at a weight. Your body can act as this weight through exercises like push ups, free squats, crunches and pull ups. Once you feel strong enough or confident enough to move to proper weights, you can purchase used weights and bars very cheaply for your home. This will save you the time and membership fees of going to a gym. A combination of weight training and cardio will greatly reap you better rewards.
Now, 3 months later, Rory has lost a total of 30 pounds and 9 inches off his body. Hi back no longer hurts and he is not starving. He eats tons of food all day and exercises less than an hour 5 days a week. So what is the secret to his success? Three very important weight loss principles that we can all incorporate.
1. Rory started strength training 3x's a week. The key here is Rory was doing the right kind of strength training for his weight loss goal. He was not going from one machine to the next, doing 3 sets of 10 reps on each one. His strength training routine incorporated exercises that used his whole body so his heart rate was up the whole time. Try doing 3 exercises, back to back, using only free weights, stability balls and your own body weight, and you'll see how quickly your heart rate goes up. No sitting on a bench and chich chatting in this workout. We keep the intensity high the whole time and the workout is complete in 45 minutes.
Incorporating strength training and reducing the amount of aerobic cardiovascular training was integral to his success. The ONLY tissue in the body that burns fat is Muscle. So the more muscle you have in your body, the more fat you're burning at any given time during the day. The amount of muscle you have in your body also greatly affects your metabolism. So someone with more muscle mass will have a higher metabolism (This is why most men can eat a lot more than women).
For example, one pound of muscle in your body requires approximately 50 calories per day. So if I had two people, both weighing 150lbs, but one was comprised of 100lbs of muscle while the other was comprised of 120lbs of muscle, the one with the more muscle mass is burning more calories all day long. That means that this person can eat more during the day and still maintain their weight and will also have an easier time losing weight. Aerobic training does burn calories while you're doing it, but it does not do anything to increase the amount of muscle in your body, thus it does not help you to continue to burn calories when you're done
2. Rory only did aerobic cardiovascular exercise using interval training. This concept could encompass a whole article unto itself, but basically, your body becomes accustomed to anything that you expose it to for long periods of time. Aerobic cardiovascular exercise makes your body more efficient at burning fat. But that's exactly what you don't want (If your car was more efficient at burning gas, you'd use less of it). Same with your body. If your body becomes efficient at burning fat, you burn less of it for the same amount of work. So instead of burning 200 calories for your 2 mile run, you may burn 150 calories for the same distance in 2 months. So you'll have to increase the distance and continue to do this, just to burn the same 200 calories. This can eventually turn into running for an hour just to burn the same number of calories! I don't know about you, but this is exactly what I don't want to do.
Interval training refers to a series of intense activity separated with short rest periods. You want to make sure that you are constantly changing the intensity of your cardio workout during the whole workout, alternating from high intensity to low intensity. So a typical workout on an elliptical machine would be 5 min warmup, 1 minute at a high intensity (level 9or 10), then 2 minutes at a lower intensity (level 3 or 4). You would repeat this 3 minute round 3 or 4 times, gradually increasing the intensities once you feel like it's getting easy. Cool down for 5 minutes, and that is a total of 19-22 minutes of cardio, not 1 hour! Keep your body guessing the whole time and it will not become accustomed to the same cardio workout.
3. Rory ate a lot of food all day long. Rory couldn't believe his meal plan when I laid it out for him. He was going to be eating more than he was currently eating and couldn't believe this was actually going to help him lose weight. The biggest difference would be what foods he would be choosing. Every meal was comprised of a healthy protein, carbohydrate and good fat. Lots of eggs (whole organic eggs, not whites), poultry, meat, fruits, whole grains, vegetables, olive oil, and raw nuts and nut butters. In order for his body to burn fat, it had to believe it wasn't starving and the only way to do that was to feed it well.
So what can you do to achieve the same great results?
1. Incorporate both a good strength training routine and interval cardio routine to your workout regimen. Don't just do one all the time. Your body needs muscle to keep your metabolism high, and it also needs cardio to keep your heart strong, so find a good balance between the two.
2. Incorporate a strength training routine that focuses on whole body movements. No sitting on machines, please. Unless you are rehabilitating an injury, you want to keep your body moving the whole time. What do you think burns more calories, a squat with a shoulder press combination or sitting on a leg press? Just try to squat and raise your arms overhead a few times and you'll see how quickly your heart rate goes up. Keep your body moving through the whole workout and you'll be sweating just as much as during your cardio.
3. Eat consistently throughout the day. We've all heard it before: Eat five meals a day to lose weight. Well, guess what? It works, as long as those meals incorporate healthy food. Eat a protein with each meal. That is the biggest mistake I see. People are not feeding their muscles with enough protein. Remember, you want to keep your metabolism cranking all day and the best way to do that is to feed your body and to keep your muscle mass high.
Hopefully, this will help you to reduce those countless hours on the treadmill and stop starving yourself to lose a few pounds. I don't know about you but if eating all day and doing less cardio is going to keep me at a healthy weight and in shape, I say AMEN to that!
Both Terry Sandhu & Andrew Bailey are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Terry Sandhu has sinced written about articles on various topics from Health, Fitness and Lose Weight. provides free information on how anyone can lose weight.Visit