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Too much cardio?

I’ve been protecting my knees, particularly my arthritic left knee, so about two months ago I stopped doing cardio. Sure, I could do some low-impact cardio, but I’m not convinced that cardio is all that important.

Don’t get me wrong. I do think getting the blood moving quickly through the body from time to time is a good thing to do, but I think cardio is highly overrated as a fitness practice.

Cardio, after all, is just another way to work your muscles.

It’s not like your heart or lungs are going to get any bigger. You’ve heard of a physiological problem called “enlarged heart” right? That’s a disease, not a fitness goal. Your heart and lungs are as big as they should be, and you’re not going to make them any bigger.

So what happens when you do cardio, then? Why do you seem to have increased heart and lung capacity?

Well, you are making your muscles more efficient. That’s why your heart and lungs can work more easily, because your muscles are better able to put the oxygen they receive to use, thus easing the burden on your cardiopulmonary system.

Now if you buy into the idea that more movement means more calorie burn — and there is no reason I know of not to buy into that idea — then you may perceive that more cardio is good if you are trying to lose fat. I agree.

But of all the things I do to work out, cardio is the least fun for me. I don’t dig all the jumping around. Sometimes, yeah. Like this weekend I actually decided to give the knee a test and did the Kenpo Cardio X from the P90X Plus series. I had not done this workout in a couple months, so I expected to fall pretty flat, but, you know what? Nope. It went well, one of the best iterations of that workout for me.

I suppose I was okay with the workout because I’ve continued to work my legs, arms, chest, even without doing cardio, so the efficiencies my muscles have realized continue to be in place. Basically, I’m staying fit.

As I was reading through Tom Venuto’s post on too much cardio, I notice that he makes mention of the different schools of thought on weight loss, and it comes back to the premise of my last post. You gotta do what’s right for you.

Here’s Tom’s conclusion in the article, which makes plenty of sense: “What you should avoid is doing hours and hours of cardio every day in an attempt to lose weight, while slashing calories to very low levels at the same time. That is worse than starvation dieting alone. Your goal is to find the right balance between burning calories and cutting calories and avoid extremes on either side [emphasis added].”

This makes so much sense. If you are doing a lot of cardio, you need extra energy and also the building materials to repair your body, so, of course, you need to eat appropriately! Find the right balance.

Now, having agreed with Mr. Venuto, I also have to say: Too much cardio? Whatever.

I think it’s interesting to read about such things, and I think it’s necessary to learn all you can about fitness and nutrition, but as a regular guy or gal, i.e. not an elite athlete or bodybuilder, don’t get wrapped around the axle about everything you read. Don’t use “too much cardio lowers your metabolism” as an excuse to skip a workout. Do use it as an excuse to examine your current fitness practices. Are you feeling rundown all the time? You probably need to eat more. Simple. Hey, maybe you are doing too much cardio. Substitute in some resistance training.

Set goals and work toward those goals. Continue to learn what science says is right and implement what your body says is right. Fitness is a lifestyle.

Do you love cardio? Do it! Do you love eating less. Do it! Resistance training? Do it! Love ’em all? Do ’em!

But, dammit, do something. There are no magic pills.

It really boils down to this for me: Do I feel better while I’m reaching my fitness goals? All good. Not feeling so great or not reaching the goals? I need to make some adjustments.

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Screw what the “experts” say. How do you feel when you eat carbs?

There is so much conflicting data out there about carbs. I’ve read so many books and absorbed so much information about paleo diets, nutrient timing, general nutrition, and my conclusion is that you really need to gauge your own body’s reaction to carbs.

Of course, that is the answer for everything: How does your body react?

Studies about human nutrition are based on generalities. Often they are not perfectly scientific, because it is just impossible to achieve a perfect environment where only one factor is changed when you are dealing with human nutrition.

Imagine trying to figure out if olive oil is good for humans or not. How can you do that?

So many of the studies are so general in nature, and so subjective, that we are fed a lot of misinformation.

The French drink five times as much wine as Americans and their levels of heart disease are five times lower than Americans’, so the wine must be the answer! This may be true, but there is no way to know if it’s the wine or not. Maybe the fact that they eat 50% more cheese than Americans is the answer.

The studies about carbs are about the same. Even if there were a way to show that carbs generally are great for the population at large, better than fat as an energy source, how would you know if it’s good specifically for you?

TRY IT!

I will use myself as an example.

I’ve gone without carbs for days, just to see what that did to me. I ended up with pretty good energy, but I felt like hell. My eyes burned, my mood was terrible.

On the other hand, I also know that when I eat a lot of simple carbs — say, around 75 to 100 grams at a sitting — I end up feeling sluggish and unable to keep my eyes open about 20 minutes later.

So I know pretty much my body’s reaction to carbs, and I consume them appropriately, based on what I know about my body, not based on what some expert or study has told me.

How about you? How do you feel when you consume carbs? Do you know?

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Get started with good nutrition when you are young

So many things we learn as we get older. It takes a while to get out of shape, but it all starts when you are young. For me it was around when I turned 25 or so. That’s when I started putting on fat.

I’d always been skinny — and I do mean skinny — when I was a kid. When I went into the military, I weighed 119. 5’10”, 119 pounds. Skinny.

At my peak weight, or at least the highest number I ever saw on the scale, I weighed 235. Yes, in 27 years I had doubled my weight.

Wow.

As a military member, I was forced to be somewhat fit. I had a maximum weight. I had to pass fitness tests. Nothing too rigorous, but it was something.

I was a runner for a while. I ran a couple half-marathons — 13.1 miles — at an 8-minute pace. Not bad.

I lifted weights for a while, but that didn’t really hold my interest. And while I enjoyed distance running, I lost interest in that, too. Then when I tried to get back into it years later, my joints couldn’t handle it.

Even without the exercise I was doing, though, I could have pretty much avoided the fat gain if only I had watched what I ate.

Don’t get me wrong. I thought I was watching what I ate. Sort of.

I went on diets, tried different ones to try to lose weight. I was a vegetarian for three years. I SomerSized. I did Atkins. I tried the Cabbage Soup thing. Low fat. Calorie restriction. I even tried some stupid rice diet that I am pretty sure messed me up for life. I lost weight on all of those diets, but the pounds always came back.

I couldn’t stick with them, or, in the case of vegetarianism, I ate so much fat — i.e. so many calories — on that diet that there was no way I’d stay healthy. (Well, the fact is that I only became a vegetarian to keep myself from eating fast food. To this day, I only very rarely visit fast food restaurants. IT WORKED!)

I think I have good eating habits now, but how much easier would my life have been if I had only developed those good habits when I was a kid? I suppose I would have missed out on a wealth of experiences, had I done that. I would not have been through the fitness ordeals that probably made me a better person.

But, still, when I see a young person latching onto the principles that will keep him or her fit throughout life, it makes me wish I’d known then what I know now.

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Lost another half-inch on the waist

If you’ve been following along, you know I’ve been stymied by this gut fat I just can’t seem to lose. It’s not that I look bad — I look so much better than I used to — but a fitness quest is a fitness quest, and having excess fat around the waist does not fit with my vision.

Well, after a month-long plateau, I’ve lost yet another half-inch from around my waist.

While I am not counting calories, I believe calorie-restriction (“eat less”) is the tactic I am taking. I am not eating as much. I usually have a bit of breakfast, take in protein shakes (almond milk, whey protein, frozen fruit) during the day, then having a nice large salad at suppertime. I always add some protein to the salad, like a piece of fish, some shrimp, or maybe some ham or turkey.

Sometimes I’ll have lunch, if I’m hungry or if I have a meeting.

On top of the waist reduction, I am also weighed in under 170 for the first time in — well, honestly, I don’t recall when.

I am not a huge proponent of the scale as a measure of fitness. After all, excess body fat is bad, muscle is good, and muscle weighs more than fat, so it stands to reason that if you are gaining weight, and that weight is muscle, not fat, that’s a good thing. So weight is not the be-all-end-all, but it is a pretty good indicator for most of us non-Schwarzenegger types.

I have some concern that I am losing muscle. Even though I’ve been working out as hard as usual, if not harder, with my resistance routines, I have not been doing the aerobics pieces. I’m skipping those, because I am trying to gauge their effect on my arthritic left knee. So far, so good — my knee feels much better these days without all the bouncing around — but I must be losing some leg muscle, right? I dunno.

Anyway, I’m not going hungry, and I feel great. I’ve been doing more yoga, my back is in good shape, I can wall squat for a good three minutes without problem, so my legs seem to be as strong as ever.

I hope to lose yet another inch or so around the waist. Let’s see if I hit another plateau.

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Eat less, move more

Eat less, move more. It’s a fitness mantra that’s been around for a long time. And it works. But people, like the lady in the MadTV skit, want an easy way out.

The madness of it is that eating less and moving more is an easy way out.

Eat less. Hmmmm…. How hard is that? Remove simple carbs from your diet. Do it incrementally. Get rid of those sugars little by little. First sodas. Then donuts. Then cupcakes. Then bagels. Or, bag it, keep the bagels, but get rid of the obvious sugars. Guaranteed you will be eating less.

People tell me, “I don’t see how you can just not eat sugars.” First of all, if you cannot control what you eat, you have addictions you should address. Second of all, those addictions can be beaten, just like any other addiction.

I used to sometimes bake a german chocolate cake, add the coconut-pecan frosting, and have that for dinner. Half the cake. The rest would be gone in a day.

I used to buy a six-pack of Cinnabons and eat three of them without blinking.

I had to stop doing that because it was killing me! Did I want to stop? No! I was addicted.

But now I can be in the same room with a German chocolate cake or a Cinnabon and not even feel tempted.

Maybe cake and cinnamon rolls are not your weakness, but what is? Coke? Cupcakes? At some point you need to make the decision to stop … and … then … just … stop. Add more fresh or frozen fruit into your diet — it’s sweet but healthy. Get the organic kind to keep the sugars down, and eat the berries and fruits as nature intended. Or don’t do that, but you gotta get off the sugar!

Eventually, even though you cannot imagine it now, your cravings for those sweet treats will diminish.

As for moving more, this is a simple thing, too. You don’t even need to work out. It’s a good idea to work out, to build muscle and keep your mind and body fit, but these simple tips will get you moving in the right direction.

  • Wear a pedometer. Shoot for 10,000 steps. Having a number goal will keep you moving. When I used to wear a pedometer, I started at 10k steps, then moved up to 15k as a minimum. The pedometer shown above is a good one. It’s silent, no annoying clicks. A number on a pedometer was a real motivator for me, when I was getting started. If I’d look down and see it was under 5000 at 2:00, that would get me moving.
  • Park far away. Don’t look for that parking spot up close. Park far away. This not only forces you to walk more, but also you avoid traffic, and you don’t need to search for a spot.
  • Get up every hour or two from your computer. You need to rest your eyes anyway, so get up and move around for a little bit. Walk around the house or office. Just walk. I walk in circles around my kitchen island, then up and down the stairs a few times.
  • Walk on the phone. If you are on the phone and use a cordless or cell, walk around while your talking. You can get in a good mile during a twenty-minute conversation that you normally would have wasted sitting and getting fatter.
  • Read while you walk. This is a new one for me, but now that I have a Kindle app on my phone, reading while walking — indoors, obviously, not out on the street — is much easier.

There’s no silver bullet to kill the fat that is killing us. Eat less, move more is the only way to go.