“Time” Magazine Agrees, Cardiovascular Exercise Is A Complete WASTE OF TIME If Your Goal Is Weigh Loss!
Run don’t walk to your nearest newsstand and grab the August 17th issue with a cover story entitled “The Myth About Exercise.” The article conclusively shows that cardiovascular exercise is a complete waste of time if your goal is weigh loss and may actually cause your to GAIN weigh instead of lose.
It’s all about appetite, and when people perform hours upon hours of cardio, they get hungrier.
But, the article does NOT look at the effects of interval based strength training, which is the style of exercise I have touted for years not, which I know for a fact does NOT include the appetite increase associated with cardio.
Plus, you don’t have to do it for hours on end. 31 minutes of interval strength-training, performed three times a week, is a total of only 93 minutes A WEEK. That’s just over an hour and a half. You know you can do that and I know it produces amazing results – you not only lose weight, you lose major inches and your body gets tight and lean – for both men and women.
And, to make the interval strength option that much more appealing, you get a 38- hour AFTERBURN. Think about that, you exercise for 31 minutes and your metabolism keeps chugging for 38 hours and you keep burning more and more calories. That’s HUGE.
There is another a MAJOR flaw in the Time piece. It says that it takes 115 minutes of lifting weights to burn off 360 calories – that’s almost 2 hours. That data is wrong, wrong, wrong. It actually said that vacuuming took only 92 minutes to burn 360 calories. COME ON! Let me take your through a strength-training session and you would see what I mean.
Is both of my recent New York Times bestsellers, The Cardio-Free Diet and The 7-Day Energy Surge, I beg you to quit all the cardio for a number of reasons. If you didn’t believe me then, do you believe me now???
Make no mistake, exercise is essential for weight loss, because without strength-training, you will lose both fat AND muscle, and that will lead to a diminished metabolism. You must perform strength-training or you are doomed to fail.
So glad you posted this Jim. I am struggling with losing my last few pounds and I have been wondering if I needed to add cardio. Now I see that I just need to make adjustments to my strength and resistance routines.
Comment by Laurie — August 9, 2009 at 2:39 pm
I totally agree, and just watch every calories. I mean, things sneak in when eating out (as I am sure you are in control when eating at home) so be hyper aware.
Comment by admin — August 9, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Yay, you DID reaad it.
Comment by chela — August 10, 2009 at 1:14 am
One very flawed, unsubstantiated article and you’re going to toss out your cardio and ignore almost every real health professionals advicel. I’m afraid Mr. Karas is a bit of snake oil salemsan with no real credentials looking to make a profit off of very bad advice. Keep up the cardio and just because you may become more hungry doesn’t mean everyone engages in irresponsible eating habits. As a cardiovascular surgeon I can tell you that cardio is extremely important for overall health. If you give up on cardio you are really giving up on a much higher quality of life.
Comment by bfree — August 14, 2009 at 5:09 pm
The problem is that the author does not really differentiate between cardio and resistance training – just “exercise” which is a massive problem that permeates in the world of journalism.
And in fact, he actually dismisses resistance training as effective too.
“According to calculations published in the journal Obesity Research by a Columbia University team in 2001, a pound of muscle burns approximately six calories a day in a resting body, compared with the two calories that a pound of fat burns. Which means that after you work out hard enough to convert, say, 10 lb. of fat to muscle — a major achievement — you would be able to eat only an extra 40 calories per day, about the amount in a teaspoon of butter, before beginning to gain weight. Good luck with that.”
It’s hardly an ensorsement for strength training.
Comment by Mike — August 16, 2009 at 11:57 pm
The research cited for strength training was inaccurate. Both Tufts University and the University of Maryland prove that muscle burns 35-34 calories, per pound, per day, respectively. I have been in this industry for 22 years and I know from hundreds of clients (including myself) that muscle burns far more than 6 calories a day.
That is the one area I strongly disagree with the “Time” piece.
Comment by admin — August 17, 2009 at 8:03 am
And I don’t disagree with you insofar as resistance training is effective for fat loss, however the true number of calories burned is closer to about 7-12cal/day. according to more recent well-conducted studies. A review of the literature compiled for the ACSM combined the most well-conducted studies and came up with a high-end number of 11.4 calories/day per pound of muscle.
Again, I’m not saying that resistance training shouldn’t be central to any program, but your numbers are inflated.
Best Pract Res Clin Gastroenterol. 2004 Dec;18(6):1009-29)
Lyle McDonald also wrote a great article (only yesterday in fact) outlining how much body fat you can realistically shed by adding muscle. If you don’t already read Lyle’s stuff – I highly recommend it.
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/reducing-body-fat-percentage-by-gaining-muscle-qa.html
Cheers.
Comment by Mike — August 17, 2009 at 2:02 pm
Bottom line, be careful endorsing the nonsense of the TIME article – he actually runs contrary to a lot of what you are preaching.
Comment by Mike — August 17, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Mike: I posted the piece, but I feel that it truly is flawed. In it, he says that if a person has 25% body fat, then the other 75% is muscle. What happened to bone and other organs in the body? Don’t they weigh anything? The assumption sounds wrong and the author also did not change anything regarding caloric intake. CLEARLY the subject would have to eat more to gain the muscle and that runs contrary to most weight loss programs which bring down calories to facilitate weight loss.
I appreciate you sending these articles on so please, continue to do so.
Jim
Comment by Jim Karas — August 17, 2009 at 2:17 pm