Slow, Boring Cardio is Actually Counter-Productive!
The more you run…the more you HAVE to run to continue to get results. Your body will make adjustments and get used to doing the same work over and over. You get good at it, and it gets easier, and your body doesn’t change with “easy.”
Also, after about 45-60 minutes of cardio, your body has used up its glycogen stores and begins to look for more fuel. It begins to break down your muscle!! You DO NOT WANT TO LOSE ANY MUSCLE!! The muscle is what keeps your resting metabolic rate high! Your muscle causes your metabolism to burn fat while you sit or sleep! It takes much more energy to sustain muscle than it does to sustain fat.
When you have poor nutrition, coupled with excessive cardio, you get that gross “skinny-fat” look. Your body uses up its lean muscle mass to keep you fueled for your long runs, and you decrease your RMR, making it harder for you to lose any more body fat. The more muscle you lose, the lower your RMR will go. When you start eating again, you will store fat like crazy!!! Not a good scenario, and EXACTLY what I was doing. Also, when you do steady-state cardio, you only burn calories while you are running and maybe 1-2 hours after the run. Not a very good return for all that work…
YOU SHOULD BE DOING INTERVAL TRAINING! When you do a tough interval workout, you jack up your metabolic rate and it stays elevated for up to 48 hours AFTER the workout!! A much better payoff than the 1-2 hours RMR elevation that the boring cardio is giving you…Intervals are hard! Your body has to work much harder than when you are running at a steady state.
When you do intervals, you warm up for a few minutes at a slow speed, then you sprint for a minute at a high intensity for you, then you walk or do a slow jog for a minute, and keep repeating this cycle for 10-20 minutes. (Intervals can be done using any exercise, by the way—bodyweight circuits, walking, swimming, riding a bike, etc…Just make sure you go low intensity-high intensity-low-high, etc)
This type of workout is hard for your body to do! The havoc it creates in your body causes an increase in your RMR because your body has to work so hard not only to do the workout, but to recover from it. When you feel the muscle soreness and the exhaustion after the workout, it is because you have broken down your muscles and damaged them.
The recovery process, where your body is rebuilding those muscles, is when the fat burning is happening! Your RMR has to increase to handle the rough task of repairing the damaged muscle. You continue to burn calories from this increase, long after the workout is over—the key to getting that lean and ripped body you want!