Study: All That Cardio Is Actually Making You Fat

For those that hate spending hours on the eleptical or the treadmill pounding away the miles, your excuse to step down has arrived. The Denver Post breaks down exactly what’s wrong with your boring and time consuming running routine.

Doing the same intensity aerobic conditioning, or cardio, will make your body more efficient at burning calories at that pace. Your body adapts and becomes smarter in how it uses its fuel.

That’s right, that boring cardio you hate doing despite the lies you tell others about your “runner’s high” is actually keeping you from losing weight, the exact opposite of what the entire point is for those trying to trim down.

But wait, there’s more. Another study claims that jogging long distances at the same time every day does the following:

1. Causes a stress reaction (cortisol release) right before you go running that makes your body grab onto fat and hold it cause stress means your body is afraid.
2. Makes you hungrier after you run. People usually then “end up eating an average of 100 calories more than they just burned off.” Not good!
3. Causes your body to literally burn muscle instead of fat. Fat is for survival and the body is willing to burn muscle in order to save up fat. Less muscle means a lowered metabolism!
4. Makes you super efficient at burning calories so that you can do the same exercise while burning fewer calories. Again, the total opposite of what you want for losing weight.

Okay, okay, so what are you supposed to do? I mean, this is exactly the opposite of what everyone says about running. If my monotonous running routine is causing me to create cortisol, become super efficient at burning fewer calories, and making me hungrier than I should be all while destroying my joints then what do I do?

Simple answer, you need to lift weights and run intervals, high intensity sprints that are short and hard. This builds muscle while avoiding the fat holding stress reaction and muscle burning nightmare that is long term jogging. It’s also better for your joints and takes less time. Best of all, it’s far less boring!

Yes, you can do this on the treadmill. Just understand that it’s the gain in muscle mass from lifting that will help increase your metabolism. Sprints do the same thing. Remember, intervals are meant to be sprints not just sort of faster than a jog.

You will lose weight doing this.