How to Use Cardio to Help Burn More Fat

As discussed in a previous article putting yourself into a calorie deficit is the only way to lose weight and lean up.

Of course, if you go from eating unhealthy processed foods to eating a super clean healthy food diet, you will see a change in your physique. But at the end of the day in order to make some serious progress, you need to be in a calorie deficit. The best way to do this is to track your food intake and make sure the scale is dropping or you’re leaning up every few weeks. But another way to help to put yourself into a calorie deficit is to burn more calories!

HOW TO burn more calories:

Weight training is the staple of every program. There are so many benefits to weight training that should be consistently performed at least 2-3 times a week. For some really lean people looking to gain muscle, cardio is not needed year-round. But for most clients, I suggest some form of cardio a few times a week for health and endurance reasons. Cardio will help you train harder when you’re in the weight room and recover better from your workouts.

By adding cardio, you can burn more calories every day without having to drop your food intake. This is beneficial when your calories are getting low and you are starting to get hungrier and hungrier between meals. Depending on your size, adding in just 30 minutes a day of some low intensity walking on a treadmill or around town can help your body burn an extra couple hundred calories. This can be enough to push you past your fat loss plateau and back to progressing towards your goals.

I prefer to do my cardio on an empty stomach the first thing in the morning. There have been plenty of studies that show that it doesn’t matter if you do cardio fasted or not; it will give you the same effect at the end of the day.

So why do I wake up 30 minutes early and do it first thing in the morning?

Because I feel it’s a great way to start my day. I feel amazing when I spend 30 minutes every morning doing a fast-paced walk outside. The morning sun and cool fresh air really wakes me up and helps my brain function much better for the rest of the day. I follow this by a cold shower for a few minutes which makes me feel I can take on the world. But if you’re not a morning person, getting your cardio in at any time of the day is all that matters. I do suggest you never do cardio before weight training because it can fatigue you and make you more susceptible to injury during your weight training session.

HOW TO MAKE START:

Whenever adding cardio make sure to start with the minimal effective dose. You never want to start by doing 1 hour of cardio 7 days a week. Although this will work for you in the short term, in the long run, it will be detrimental to your progress. The problem with starting with too much cardio, you will have no more room in your day to add cardio when you hit a plateau. If you’re already doing 1 hour of cardio every day, then what’s next, 90 minutes of cardio a day and then after that 2 hours of cardio a day. That is too much cardio. That would end up being over 3 hours of gym time a day. Nobody has that amount of time plus you will burn out quickly. I suggest starting with just 20-30 minutes of light walking outside or on a treadmill set to a steep incline. When you hit your next plateau you can add an extra 10 minutes of cardio each day. You also don’t need to start by doing cardio every day. 4-5 times a week is a good starting point for most people.

I will save the debate of whether high-intensity cardio (HIT) is better than low-intensity cardio for another article but like most things in life, a combo of both is a good strategy.

ONE THING TO REMEMBER ABOUT CARDIO:

Just make sure your cardio isn’t too demanding on your body because the last thing we want is to have your cardio workout impacting your strength training workout. Remember strength training is more important than cardio work at the end of the day.

Never look at weight training as a fat-burning session. The goal of weight training is to focus on getting stronger, building muscle, and working on joint stability. You will burn fat by following a properly set up diet and by performing an effective dose of cardio when needed.