Cardio is for dummies!  How too much exercise can make you fat.

By Randy Alvarez

I battled weight loss for over 15 years.  After high school, I started working and gaining a few pounds here and there.  The Wellness Hour took off in 1999 and the weight started pouring on. I had a genetic problem; my genetic problem was at the end of my fork.  I was eating junk food at least once a week. I had my list of excuses and although I knew better my appetite was out of control.  I found myself 42 lbs heavier than I am today.  Here I was interviewing health professionals and advocating good health and I was fat!  I will outline my eating philosophy in another blog entry, but the thing that amazed me was that at the time I was exercising one hour a day on either the tread mill or stair climber at the gym.  What was happening?  I was starting to look like the flabby aerobics instructor at the gym!  I will make this long story short; cardio was one of things making me fat.  How? Well let me give you the background information.

I met a well known endocrinologist, a hormone expert, who had a similar story as mine. She pointed out that my eating habits, stressed lifestyle, possible type A personality and one hour of cardio a day was raising stress hormones in my body – hormones like cortisol and adrenaline just to name a couple.  She informed me that my high cortisol levels made it almost impossible for my body to burn fat. There is plenty of science to back this up, published articles in mainstream as well as medical peer reviewed journals.
  
Some years ago I met Clinical Nutritionist Mark Smith who is a health expert and a PhD from an accredited university.  He explained to me that doing one minute burst training instead of lengthy cardio exercise would turn my life around.  As an example – he suggested that instead of jogging on the treadmill for one hour, and he presented evidence to back up his statement, I should sprint as fast as I could for one minute, four times a day, three days a week. He explained that this practice would burn more fat than one hour of cardio a day, seven days a week. He was right!

Over the years, since 1991 I have attended medical conferences on a regular basis and I found that the doctors and nutritionist who were in the best shape all knew about how bad cardio can be for the human body.  Many experts agree that humans where not designed to do long duration cardio vascular exercise, but rather short burst of exertion such as running to capture food, or while playing games. 

Research in exercise science has shown that growth hormone levels in the body rise with burst training and also with hard high intensity weight lifting. I wish I could just say ‘trust me this works’… but trust me it does. No matter what your age or current fitness level is, you still have your maximum you can shoot for in a one-minute burst.  By walking up stairs for one minute as hard as you can you will achieve the same effect. Science also shows that these one minute burst of exercise strengthen the heart muscle, improve circulation and have a direct positive effect on brain function.

After having spent countless hours at seminars, interviewing the healthiest people in the world my conclusion is that cardio is for dummies.  Try this – four days of 20 to 30 minutes of some type of resistance training working all areas of the body in different ways.  The key here is to work out at your maximum capacity. Intensity is key for 20 to 30 minutes with weights.  You will shrink.  I did.  In addition to the resistance training you need to do at least 12 minutes a week of high intensity (at your own level – your hardest is all that matters) so called aerobic burst training.  Stairs for one minute as hard as you can, cycling as hard as you can for one minute, walking, jogging or running for one minute as fast as you can.  Do this for a month and you will feel the difference.  Note:  If you are training for a sport or special sporting event such as a 5K run or a marathon naturally you will have to go beyond these guidelines. 

If you want to go on the path of accelerated aging do lots of cardio.  You will age faster by joining a spin class. Look at the faces of long duration cardio kings and queens, old and dried up.  It’s no joke.  Raise stress hormones and age fast and get all of the diseases associated with aging.  This is such an important issue that the more I write the more I want to say.

In this day Americans are fatter than ever and we are doing more cardio than ever… this is the big topic. I have strong opinions about this and to cover this issue properly would take an entire book, but with that being said, stop your cardio and lose body fat.

My suggestion to anyone wanting to improve their workout routine is to watch Mark Smith’s video in my video library and get started.  He does not pay me to say this. I would also recommend reading any one of Dr. Diana Swarzbein’s books they are in every book store.

 

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