Most health and fitness experts promote cardio exercise as among the best forms of exercise to assist with weight loss. Many experts, such as the American College of Sports Medicine, suggest that you can attain your greatest long-term weight loss success by incorporating cardio into your daily routine, but a few skeptics have questioned the conventional wisdom on the usefulness of cardio exercise for weight loss.
Cardio Exercise
Cardio exercise refers to the sustained exertion of the large muscles in your lower body at a pace sufficient to elevate your heart and breathing rate. These large, powerful muscles require lots of energy to move your entire body about. Your heart rate and breathing increase to deliver fuel and oxygen to your muscles. Examples of cardio exercise include walking, running, biking and swimming. Most experts, such as MayoClinic.com, recommend that you perform cardio exercise at a moderately intense level to get the best health and calorie-burning benefits. A moderately intense pace includes walking at 3 mph, running at 6 mph and biking at 12 to 14 mph.
Benefits
When you do cardio exercise at a moderately intense pace for most days of the week, you work out your lower body muscles, but also your heart, lungs and pulmonary system. Routine cardio enhances your immune system, improves your mood and lowers your risk for various health conditions, including obesity, heart disease, diabetes, stroke and certain types of cancer. (reference: MayoClinic.com) You also burn calories. A 180-lb. person who does 60 minutes of cardio burns 280 calories walking at 3 mph, 686 calories biking at 12 to 14 mph and 857 calories running at 6 mph, estimates Bodybuilding.com.
Weight Loss
For every 3,500 calories you burn, you lose 1 lb. of weight. Consequently, a 180 lb. person who does 60 minutes of moderately intense cardio daily for a month burns 2.4 lbs. walking, 5.9 lbs. biking and 7.3 lbs. running. According to the math, cardio exercise is beneficial for weight loss.
Questions
Not everybody concurs that cardio exercise inevitably leads to weight loss. One potential problem with exercise is that it makes you hungry. You burn calories while you exercise, but if you're not careful, you can easily refill your fat stores in a few moments. A large soda, a fast-food meal or a bowl of ice cream can more than compensate for calories burned in cardio. Psychologist Roy Baumeister describes in the 2007 "Current Directions in Psychological Science" a phenomenon he calls ego depletion. He suggests that after exerting self-control, people tend to suffer a temporary impairment in their will and are more inclined to eat, drink, spend money or engage in some other compensatory self-indulgent action. Baumeister says that low blood glucose contributes to the motive to indulge. Journalist John Cloud suggests in the August 2009 edition of "Time" magazine that after intensive cardio exercise, most people tend to give into their low blood sugar and indulge themselves, eating food that sabotages their hard-earned calorie loss.
Cardio and Weight Loss
Research is mixed. Exercise doesn't automatically lead to weight loss, suggests Katherine Seratsky, R.D. at MayoClinic.com. How many calories you consume determines how much weight you lose. Though diet is the critical factor, Seratsky notes that exercise helps people keep lost weight off. Research, such as in the November 1999 "Medicine and Science in Sports and Medicine," demonstrates an association between a sedentary lifestyle and risk of weight gain, but other research, such as the prospective study in the 2006 "Obesity," finds that obesity leads to a sedentary lifestyle but fails to find that a sedentary lifestyle leads to obesity. The bottom line is that while cardio exercise enhances your health and is not bad for weight loss, it does not guarantee weight loss. To lose weight, you must decrease how many calories you consume. And to have cardio help you lose weight, you must resist that post-workout muffin, even if you feel you deserve it.
References
- American College of Sports Medicine: Guidelines for Healthy Adults Under Age 65
- BodyBuilding.com: How Many Calories Are You Burning?
- "Current Directions in Psychological Science"; The Strength Model of Self Control; Roy Baumeister, et al.; 2007
- MayoClinic.com; Aerobic Exercise: Top 10 Reasons to Get Physical; Feb. 12, 2011
- MayoClinic.com; Walking: Is It Enough for Weight Loss?; Katherine Zeratsky; January, 2010
- "Time"; Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin; John Cloud; August, 2009
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