Losing the Fat - Diet or Exercise?

The other day I was on this forum and I got involved in a discussion about fat loss. The discussion was basically about what is better for fat loss, diet or exercise. Incidentally, this was a bodybuilding forum and a vast majority had the opinion that weight loss or fat loss has nothing to do with exercise. There were comments like

‘btw....'workout for fat loss'? stupid freakin' thread. fat loss is about a caloric deficit.’

And

‘Fat is lost in the kitchen and by doing lower repetitions with the fork at the dinner table.’

I found it very interested that people who kill themselves in the gym were of the opinion that exercise has very little to do with fat loss.

So, should I agree or disagree with them. Well, in my personal experience exercise and diet are both important to get fit, but to lose weight!! Not really. If you just start eating less, you will lose weight as your body will dig into the fat stores that you have to make up for the calorie deficit. However, the human body is very intelligent and it adapts to how you treat it. You can only lose to a limit but reducing calories. I mean, how many calories can you create a deficit of. On the other hand, what exercises do is, increase your overall calorie expenditure. The only way your body adapts to this increase in expenditure is by either building muscle or increasing your stamina and other health benefits.

The point is, if your aim is only to lose weight, the lower your calories will work. But if you want to have a healthy life and increase your fitness level, then you need to have some sort of exercise in your daily routine. You see many skinny or thin girls who can’t walk 3 flight of stairs. To me that just isn’t right.

Cutting the long story short, exercise and diet go hand in hand. The fatless formula is all about keeping the balance between the two.

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Why cardio? Do you really need it?

So when exactly should you do your cardio? You will find many concepts e.g. do your cardio on an empty stomach, do your cardio early in the morning, right after a workout and the list goes on and on. First of all, you need to establish what your aim is, because a person who wants to become a bodybuilder will have to treat cardio differently as compared to a person who wants to become a marathon runner. So the first step is for you to decide and right down your aim and then keep reading.

Why do cardio?

Cardio is mainly used for helping in a program where you want to lose weight and/or improve your cardio vascular system. In the process, it makes your heart strong, so that it doesn’t have to work too hard to pump blood, it makes you feel good, sleep better and reduce your overall stress levels. So basically, what I am trying to say here is – DO CARDIO!!

Type of cardio

Until a few years ago, cardio meant just going out and running in the park. People would run 2 miles and come back saying – that was a great cardio workout. This was known as the steady state cardio e.g. running, walking, cycling etc. as a steady pace for 30 – 45 minutes. However, in the recent past, another type of cardio caught everyone’s attention. High Intensity Training (HIT) or High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), took the fitness industry by storm. This involved alternating between low intensity and small intervals of high intensity (e.g. jogging and sprinting).

How does cardio burn fat?

Cardio exercises are primarily catabolic, which means they breakdown stuff. They breakdown fat, they breakdown muscles and they break your joints as well, especially if you are running on a hard surface (LAME!!!…I know…a joke nonetheless). So basically breaking down all these things helps you lose weight. You will understand everything slightly better if I explain how both of these cardio types work. If we look at the steady state cardio, the concept is that you keep it low intensity and for longer durations so that your primary source of energy is fat. If you increase the intensity, then you start using more carbohydrates. When you do 45 minutes of low intensity walk, you will burn about 250 calories during the workout and some more after the workout. At this point your body will have burnt a reasonable amount of fat and will burn some more after the workout.

As for the High Intensity Trainings, you jump between high and low intensity movements. You run very fast for 1 minute and recover for 2 minutes with either a jog or a walk. Do this 5 – 8 times and you are done. The idea is that you burn calories during the workout from all sources (i.e. protein, fat and carbohydrates, primarily from carbohydrates) and you keep burning them for hours after (EPOC – Excess Post-workout Oxygen Consumption). So, you don’t just burn fat, you burn all three and therefore you burn more calories. The question is, why burn all three? Well, if you have lots of carbs in your system and you concentrate on burning fat and the carbs are left over, most of these carbs will be converted to fat and stored for future use, so it is a good idea to concentrate on fats and carbs instead of just one. The thing with protein is that, you will always be using protein, but you can control this usage and decrease it. For example, keep your steady state cardio under 45 minutes and incase of HIT, make sure you are not on an empty stomach.

Continue reading - Which cardio you should be doing and why? 

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15 minutes or 1 hour workout

In the recent past, I have seen many people discuss which option is better. Should you workout once a day for one hour or is it better to spread it out and do it 4 times a day for 15 minutes each. At the end of the day, seems like it is the same thing but let’s take a look at it from a practicality point of view.

What is your goal?

The first thing you need to ask yourself is what exactly your goal is. If you are into building huge muscle then you can stop with the 15 minute workouts, because that will never happen for you. If you are looking to get fit or lose a few pounds, then it sort of does make sense. Consider this – before you eat any major meal, you do a quick 15 minute circuit training workout e.g.

- 5 minute warm up

- Max push-ups

- 20 jump squats

- 10 Pull-ups

That is one example. Another example would be:

- 5 minute warm up

- 20 Burpees

- 20 Legraises

- 20 Crunches

(Repeat the Leg raises and crunches twice)

These are very quick high intensity workouts and just think about this way, when you do similar workouts just before you eat something, most of it is going to be used towards recovery and basically, none of it will be left over to be converted to FAT. Plus, these are great cardio workouts, so your stamina and overall health improves as well.

One hour torture

Some people like this and some don’t. After you have been working for a few months/years, you tend to convince yourself to get up and go to the gym or work out at home. I know how it feels when you want to work out but the idea of spending an hour just lifting weights, gasping for air and tiring yourself out plays a very negative role.

Sweaty

When you work out your tend to sweat, and if these workouts are high intensity, you will keep on sweating for quite some time. Imagine that you work in an office and you did a quick workout before a client meeting. Chances are, you will forget your deodorant and the client won’t want to stick around and would leave early – Not Good!! So here is a question, is this method practical for people who work?

Metabolism

Personally, I believe that breaking your workout up and spreading it out helps keep your metabolism elevated for most of the day. However, if the workouts are just a walk on your treadmill, then this may not be very true. If you work out an hour a day in one go, then you will reap the benefits of the traditional EPOC effect which will last a few hours depending on how intense your workout was, but will breaking the workout, you are targeting the mini EPOC around your meals which is a better strategy.

Conclusion

Based on the above, seems like doing 4 x 15 work outs are a better option than one long workout for fitness and weight loss. However, taking a practical look at it, most of us are working class people and we might not be able to work out 2 – 3 times during office hours. The strategy is suitable for stay at home moms, college students with 2 lectures a week etc.

At the end of the day, the idea is to get an hour’s worth of exercise. As long as you can do that, you should be fine.

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