Cardio Only? Welcome to Temporary Results
Anna Lepeley, M.S., CSCS, CISSN

Ever have that friend that loses impressionable amounts of weight throughout their gym crazes and seem to gain it all back within seconds of quitting the gym? Ok, well maybe not seconds, but perhaps weeks. Cardio increases your basal metabolic rate and increases your heart rate, burning up those unwanted calories, but primarily for the time being; that time being your time on the cardio machine! After that it's back to where your body wants it for the 160 hours of the week you spend out of the gym. Once you stop your cardio craze, the weight comes back on fast! In addition, you lose your cardiorespiratory adaptations very quickly, in other words, you'll be huffing and puffing in no time with activities you used to breeze through when you were regularly doing cardio. [1]

The solution? Pick up some weights! You'll build muscle, sustain increased metabolic rate with muscle accumulation, and spend less time doing cardio! In addition, you don't need to work out as much and when you take that week or two off from the gym come holiday season, you'll still be maintaining most of the work you put in year-round (muscle adaptations won't leave you stranded as quickly as cardiorespiratory advancements) as opposed to losing it all in a few days. [2, 3, 4]

It gets even better! Doing your cardio activity after resistance training burns more calories than doing your cardio prior to resistance training. When you lift weights your body utilizes your glycogen storage (stored carbohydrate) for energy, once you utilize all of that you are ready to burn fat for your cardio session! [5] Give it a good hour of highintensity weightlifting followed by twenty to thirty minutes of cardio and you'll be on your way. That way you don't have to spend hours on cardio! And you can sleep on that! Recovery from your workouts occurs while catching your ZZZ's and that also affects your metabolism. [6, 7, 8] Preventing crankiness isn't the only reason to get adequate sleep!

Oh, and one more thing. Please, please, please do not wear those dumbass vinyl suits or bands that go around your waist. I can't believe people (besides wrestlers) still use those! All it will do is cause excessive sweating in that specific area, or with a vinyl suit you're looking at massive dehydration. Unless you want to lose a few pounds in water weight and possibly faint; being well hydrated is what actually speeds up your metabolism. Just drink plenty of water and ditch the dehydration methods. Don't fear water; don't get anorexic on me now.

References

References Available Upon Request