Cardio To Lose Weight - How To Get Started

Do You Really Need Cardio To Lose Weight? Here is the bad news: Yes you do. Traditional, everyday weight loss tips are built around this idea of calories out, calories in. This concept is completely wrong and makes it hard for people to actually lose fat. The simple truth is that calories create fat while fat is neither created nor lost by eating food.

If you were to actually stop and think about it for a minute, you would realize that it takes more calories to move you around than it does to sit still and do nothing. So if you burn 1000 calories per week you need to multiply that by thirty-five to come up with your Body Mass Index or BMI. This would give you an idea of how many calories you should be eating per meal. Now if you were to burn fifteen hundred calories per week then you would be doing far too much cardio to lose weight! In fact you should be doing far less cardio to actually lose body fat.

So, to burn calories you need to find an effective way to make up for the shortfall in calories you're not getting from food. This can be done easily if you have a proper diet and some cardiovascular workouts. The diet part is relatively easy, you just need to pick a calorie deficit and stick with it. An effective calorie deficit will equal the difference between your daily calorie intake and your maximum calorie output for an hour in a day.

Cardiovascular workouts are also pretty easy. For example jogging is a great way to get the hard work into your routine and at the same time burn lots of calories and fat. So how much cardio is actually needed to lose the weight per week? As a matter of fact it depends on what type of cardio you do. You should be doing a mix of high intensity cardio and a good mix of lower intensity cardio. So, either way you should be doing a little of both!

So you can see that it is important to have a plan for your weight loss. The plan will depend on what you want to accomplish and whether or not you want to rely solely on a diet and exercise program. It may be wise to combine the two to get better results. In my experience it is usually best to start off with a diet and strength training program before going full force on cardio. That way you have less chance of having any problems with nutritional deficiencies or injury during your program.

Let's look at an example of what I mean. If you were going to lose thirty pounds in three months, you would need to increase your calorie intake by four hundred calories per day. That will be easy to do if you are just following a healthy diet and getting lots of exercise. However if you were trying to cut twenty pounds in a month, you would need to decrease your calorie intake by about one thousand calories per day. This means that you would need to increase your calorie intake by about four hundred calories a day. Therefore you would end up with a three-month period where you ate nothing but water or a couple of times a day instead of the normal three times per day.

This same principle is true for strength training as well. You do not want to go overboard and do too much strength training because this can actually set you up for injuries. So you need to start off with some cardiovascular and maybe some resistance training to get you off to a good start. Over time you can add more resistance training to help you lose weight faster.

Now that we know that both cardio and strength training are essential when trying to lose weight it is time to talk about the types of cardio that you should use. You need to find a program that uses these two components effectively. Two great options are Pilates and Yoga. These two exercises work the heart and lungs very effectively. They also will help you increase your overall stamina and your confidence. And don't forget, doing cardiovascular exercise burns calories so this is an important component as well.