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Myth
1: The best way to burn fat is
doing a steady level of cardio for at least 45
minutes.
Truth: It
may feel easier to just walk a fast pace or jog
a comfortable pace for an extended period of
time. When you get off the treadmill, and
you can see that you burned 300 calories, it
feels great. BUT what you don’t see is
what happens afterwards. When you perform
cardio at a higher intensity and performing it
with interval training, your body will actually
burn more calories overall throughout the
day. Why? Your body will burn more
calories throughout the day to repair itself
after your challenging
workout.
Myth
2: You can eat whatever you want
as long as you do a lot more
cardio.
Truth: You
are what you eat! You can’t eat burgers
and fries just because you spent an hour on the
treadmill and burned 500 calories. Why
work so hard to burn off 500 calories if you
are just going to turn around and eat it back
on, if not more? You must eat more
healthfully AND do cardio for overall fat
loss.
Myth
3: Carrying or wearing weights
while simultaneously performing cardio is a big
help to burn more fat.
Truth: The
light dumbbells or ankle weights are probably
not going to be heavy enough to make that great
of an impact to elevate your calorie
burn. Do yourself a favor and hit the
weight room – as you build your muscles, you
will improve your metabolism and burn more
calories while at rest. To burn more fat
while doing cardio, elevate your level of
intensity with intervals.
Myth
4: Choose one type of cardio and
do it religiously forever if you want to lose
fat and experience phenomenal progress and
results.
Truth: If
you exercise the same muscles with the same
type of exercise every single day, your body
adapts to that exercise. Ever hear the
term “plateau”? Your ability to burn fat
levels out. Athletes “cross-train” all
the time to help them from burning out.
Changing your exercise routine not only helps
you stay interested and motivated, but it also
helps your body progress. It keeps your
body challenged, and it also helps you exercise
different muscle groups when you change up your
routine. Try running, biking, swimming,
stair-climbing, or kick-boxing, and remember to
vary the intensity too!
Myth
5: If you don’t have time to do
at least 30 to 45 minutes of cardio, then don’t
even bother.
Truth: Granted,
if you could do at least 30 to 45 minutes of
cardio, you may experience greater health
benefits quicker. However, with that
being said, if you only have 15 minutes or 20
minutes to get some cardio in for the day,
that’s better than nothing. When it comes
to burning calories and fat, activity (rather
than non activity) helps you. Make the
most of the time that you do have. If you
don’t have a large chunk of time to spare for a
workout, breaking it up into separate smaller
chunks is another option. For example, if
you’re unable to squeeze in a 45 minute workout
during any one point of the day, maybe you can
squeeze in 20 minutes in the morning and 20
minutes in the evening.
Myth
6: Eating before a session of
cardio is a big no-no if you want to burn
fat.
Truth: If
you are going to do a steady level of cardio
without a lot of intensity, you are probably
going to be okay working out on an empty
stomach. This may help your body access
its fat stores faster and burn that fat as
fuel. However, if you plan on training
for a 10K race and your coach wants you to
incorporate sprints in between your 10-minute
miles, you are going to need glucose for
fuel. If you don’t eat before this type
of cardio session, you’ll end up burning muscle
tissue. You’ll do well eating a small
protein and carbohydrate meal about an hour
before you hit this high intensity
workout.
Myth
7: It’s okay to read or talk on
the phone during your cardio
exercise.
Truth: Although
many of us would like to entertain ourselves to
pass the time quicker, if you can actually read
or talk on the phone (or do any task that
requires concentration) while you are
performing cardio, then you are not exerting
yourself hard enough. Your level of
intensity should be challenging enough so that
you are required to only focus on the task at
hand: your cardio! What about
watching tv? You are better off
concentrating on your movements and paying
attention to your form to yield yourself the
best results.
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