Cardio or eat less?

[ben1500]

Hi guys, out of curiosity is it better to do cardio or just eat a little less if you want to lose some weight. I ask this as I’m wondering whether cardio causes too much interference or not and potentially causes you to be too rundown?

Cheers!

[SuffolkPunch]

Almost identical from a body composition perspective.

All I would say is if you have the time and spare recovery capacity, cardio has health benefits - and may help raise your work capacity for later in your career when you have to do more to keep results coming.

[rhadam]

Hi guys, out of curiosity is it better to do cardio or just eat a little less if you want to lose some weight. I ask this as I’m wondering whether cardio causes too much interference or not and potentially causes you to be too rundown?

Cheers!

As said above, for body composition purposes 200 calories detracted by way of eating less vs 200 calories burned through exercise will be roughly the same. Now here's a big difference: 250 calories is, i believe, a 20oz Dr. Pepper. Do you know how long it takes to burn 250 calories on a treadmill or exercise bike? Much easier to simply skip the soda and drink a diet 0 calorie soda, or water, or something with say 100 calories instead. From a physiological standpoint we should start with diet first, because you can't out-cardio a bad diet. You definitely can feel "run down" from doing a lot of cardio as well as restricting calories to a large degree.

[air2fakie]

Hi guys, out of curiosity is it better to do cardio or just eat a little less if you want to lose some weight. I ask this as I’m wondering whether cardio causes too much interference or not and potentially causes you to be too rundown?

You can do some of both to achieve your goals - not mutually exclusive.

[Tommy W.]

A lot depends on how low your calories need to become. Too low and yes you need to add activity. A good cardio program is beneficial to CV health so it’s always a good idea to include some. You don’t have to go overboard, a few weekly sessions is sufficient. Overdoing it can cause too much hunger and once your body adapts, the calorie burning goes down so it can be a slippery slope

[faithbrah]

i like to use cardio as a tool that allows me to eat more. oh, i can only eat 2800 calories today? better do some cardio and i can eat 3000

[ben1500]

i like to use cardio as a tool that allows me to eat more. oh, i can only eat 2800 calories today? better do some cardio and i can eat 3000

How often would say toy do cardio? What type?

[MrCarrot]

As said above, for body composition purposes 200 calories detracted by way of eating less vs 200 calories burned through exercise will be roughly the same. Now here's a big difference: 250 calories is, i believe, a 20oz Dr. Pepper. Do you know how long it takes to burn 250 calories on a treadmill or exercise bike? Much easier to simply skip the soda and drink a diet 0 calorie soda, or water, or something with say 100 calories instead. From a physiological standpoint we should start with diet first, because you can't out-cardio a bad diet. You definitely can feel "run down" from doing a lot of cardio as well as restricting calories to a large degree.

Yep, this is exaclty why I stopped doing cardio and focused on nutrition. Pretty much along the lines you said, I could eat 4 cookies and run for 20 minutes on a treadmill to burn them off... or I could just not eat the 4 cookies. I know which is easier.

That's not to say cardio doesn't have health benefits, but I don't do it any longer.