The Best Cardio for Fat Loss
The best exercise for weight loss is not what you think!
In this post I am going to talk about the benefits of walking and how it will help you stick to your fat loss goals and build an incredible physique.
The Beauty of Walking
You see, here’s the thing, most people only view cardio from a one dimensional point of view. They only pay attention to how many calories they are burning…
But this is where you need to think of the big picture.
Ask yourself, is all this cardio helping me stick to my diet and calorie intake?
When dealing with fat loss, this is the most logical frame of mind to come from. My goal for you is to make fat loss downright enjoyable.
If you are enjoying your cut, you’re going to get to you goal! Plain and simple. The reason people fail to achieve their fat loss goals is because they can’t consistently stick to the plan.
This is why I love walking!
Walking is so enjoyable for many reasons. First being, it’s just practical! We need to get to places right?
Nowadays, I enjoy walking to my local Starbucks to get an Americano in the beautiful Canadian, Fall weather.
Walking also doesn’t burn you out and it helps improve your recovery, keeping you fresh and recharged for your workouts during the week.
It’s mood elevating as well! But there is something much deeper. Something that truly supports the true beauty of walking.
Walking does not increase your hunger!
Research has shown that walking has a neutral effect on appetite. And I know for me and the many others that I talk to, going for a quick walk instantly reduces cravings and keeps your mind off food.
Don’t Drain Your Will Power
Will power is a finite resource. You only have so much of it.
After forcing yourself to do all of this running and intense interval training, or even crossfit, you are going to burn a ton of calories and deplete your glycogen stores.
Inevitably, leading you to cravings that will make dieting much more difficult. And with limited will power, that second and third bowl of ice cream becomes very appealing.
From my experience and many others, while trying to dial in our nutrition, all the extra cardio makes it really difficult to hit that deficit.
Sticking to your diet, and workout routine alone is exercising discipline and commitment, tapping into your will power reserves.
This is one of the main reasons as to why I do not do any cardio.
Sure, sometimes I may play around with the jump rope or play sports. But this is not on a consistent basis.
I simply go for a 30 minute or hour walk each day, because it does not deplete my will power.
The Art of Strength Training
Strength training and walking is all you need to build an incredible physique.
This is all I do:
I strength train 2 to 3 times per week and walk a little each day.
Strength training is the key piece to the puzzle. If done correctly, strength training will ensure the weight you lose is body fat and not muscle.
For example, if you lose 20lbs over the course of 3 months without any weight training, this could typically result in about 14lbs of fat AND 6lbs of muscle loss…
Ruining the lean and chiseled look we are trying to create.
This would suck to know you worked your butt off just to see a huge portion of the weight lost was from muscle. This is the reason all of my courses emphasize strength training 3 times per week.
By strength training, properly, mind you, you can ensure that every pound you drop, comes from body fat. This way, when you lean down, your muscles are hard, dense and defined (instead of being non existent).
Final Thoughts
Ditching the cardio and only focusing on walking and a few strength training workouts each week is how I make sticking to my diet and fat loss a breeze!
Funny enough, I remember back when I had my nutrition dialed in completely while doing cardio. When I dropped the cardio, there was no difference in fat loss!
There really is no extra benefit. You need to focus on the most enjoyable way to hit your calorie deficit. Walking is your answer.
Lyle McDonald, a well educated mind in the fitness space, actually talks about this in one of his articles. When trying to go low in calories, adding in a lot of extra cardio does not equate to the extra fat loss as one would think.
It actually begins to work against you. Your body will try to conserve more energy, making you more lazy and less likely to move around throughout the day.
Your body burns a lot of its calories outside of exercise. For example, fidgeting, yard work, moving around etc… This is called Non-exercise activity thermogenesis.
Focus your hard work on dialing in your nutrition, walking a little each day, and strength training 3 times per week. This is how you will effortlessly build an amazing physique.