Help Me Become A Healthier Person Please - Part 3

[DawnToDusk]

It has been a month since my last post and I would just like to say I have made great strides since I started reading this forum. My eating habits have changed tremendously. I now know how to eat properly and it is no problem at all for me to prepare my own meals that I know will help me cut and put on lean mass. I have also learned a great deal about lifting and have made strides there as well. In all fairness I have only been lifting for two weeks (just got back to school and the gym is free) but can start to see a difference in my body as well as in my strength when at the gym. I have found a workout/diet partner who has become a great friend and we hold each other accountable for our bodies and health. I would just like to take the time and thank everyone on these forums who has helped me thus far. I couldn't of done it without your knowledge.

For those of you who would like to follow along, as you may be looking to start a healthier lifestyle or just have some general questions in general, please do so! My last post: Help Me Become A Healthier Person Please - Part 2, touched a little more on foods and supplements/vitamins. The post really just cleans up some loose ends. If you would like to get the big picture on food read post 1 or visit the FAQ. After working out for two weeks, where my goals are to cut and put on lean mass, I would like to take the time to talk about cardio activities.

Alright. The time I spend at the gym gets broken down into five consecutive days. Mon, Weds, Fri I am lifting. I go with my partner, get in and out. Try to keep socializing to a minimum (but if there is a cutie I will indulge from time to time [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] ). Tues and Thursday I do cardio and all of my cardio comes from biking.

Now back in my first post I gave a little history about myself. I said I played some sports but was more of a lanky/skinny guy. Cardio and running stamina (if that is a real thing?) was my deal back in HS. I could run several miles no problem without having to pant or anything. I am starting to return to my old ways when I hop on the bike.

On Tues and Thurs I usually bike for an hour. I set the tension on the bike to 10 (I don't know if there is a universal tension for bikes but the ones at my school go from 1-20.) and keep my RPM's 65+. At the end of my hour I bike 15+ mi and burn 900-1000+ calories. My concern is that this may be preventing my body from actually "growing" and putting on lean mass.

Again my overall goal is to lead a healthier lifestyle. Within that goal I would like cut down on my fat and put on lean muscle mass. Is doing to much cardio going to cancel out the positive effects of lifting weights? By burning so much cals am I taking away to much nutrients from muscles who need it to repair?

This is a very big concern for me. I have an excess bit of fat on my stomach (its not like a gut or anything but pretty much it is preventing me from having a flat stomach) and I know that the workouts for my core are definitely going to improving my stomach muscles and everything else in my body. But I feel like that the cardio will help me burn this fat off a little bit faster. Do I just have a misconception about cardio workouts?

So here are the real big and important questions about cardio workouts that I would like to discuss:

What is the main purpose of a cardio workout?

How often and how long are you doing cardio workouts a week?

Aside from the main purpose what other goals are you trying to accomplish during a cardio workout? (ie Burn x amount of calories or something else)

Is to much cardio for you bad? If so why? How much is to much?

Are there any optimal cardio exercises or ones that have had good results for you?

What PWO meals do you suggest after doing cardio? Do you suggest any at all?

Any other tid bits of knowledge you would like to add. =)



These questions may seem really trivial but after doing so much cardio (maybe it isn't actually a lot) I wanted to make sure I didn't have misconceptions about it. Helping me answer these questions and further understand the subject should clear up any foggy ideas I have. Maybe it will help others too! =)



Once again thank you so much for your help.

[DawnToDusk]

Just a bump for the weekend group. What are your thoughts?

[MagicNinja]

if you do cardio you will burn energy; energy (calories) is used to either build muscle or fat (muscle if you are lifting; but if you eat HEAPS, not matter how much you lift it will start being stored as fat since your body can only build so much muscle at a time).

cardio will build a limited amount of muscle (but not in the same way that lifting will). it will also build cardiovascular strength (your heart will get stronger so you can run longer etc).

basically you will not be able to build much muscle unless you are giving your body slightly more food than you are using, since it takes energy to build muscle. you will lift slightly more as your body gets better at lifting weights even if you don't build much more muscle (the neurological pathways used to lift are strengthened i think). doing cardio basically means you will have to eat more food to build more muscle; that is why most people who workout for looks alone only do cardio in 'cutting' phases (where they want to shed weight while maintaining muscle mass). so if you are eating 2500 calories a day, your maintenance calories are like 2200 or something, that gives you 300 calories to build muscle. if you then go do 1000 calories of cardio you will now be losing fat instead of building muscle, as you are eating at a 700 calorie deficit. it is basically impossible to do both at the same time.

basically if you are trying to maintain your current weight while adding muscle, you should eat your maintenance amount of calories, then add on as many calories as you burn during cardio, then add on as many calories as you need to build muscle. if you want to shed your gut, keep doing what you are doing, then when it is gone, start eating more again so you can build muscle. but these should really be small changes.

often people just drink carb drinks to replenish the amount of calories they are burning during cardio (eg drinking a litre of gatorade while riding for an hour). i don't think too much cardio is bad for you, unless you were completely driven to bust yourself up (eg more than 5-6 hours a day).

[joop]

Didn't read your other threads, or the replies in this one, but I'll answer your questions as best I can.

1. Main purpose is to increase cardiovascular health/fitness. Some people will say the main purpose of cardio is to lose bodyfat - but bodyfat can be lost without cardio.

2. Depends on your goals. You said your goal was to 'become healthier' - so from this perspective I would say 3x 30-40mins would be a minimum. The more the better, though - a person doing cardio 5days a week for an hour will generally have better cardiocascular health than the 3x 30-40mins guy... all other things being equal.

3. Don't really understand question - but generally people are aiming for health/fitness or fatloss.

4. Yes, too much is bad. If you do too much, you will fall into an overtrained state and be more susceptible to injury, your immune system will be weakened, and you will generally start to feel like ass. Each person has their own tolerance, a highly trained cyclist, for example, will be able to do 10x more cardio than an untrained person - with no ill effects. How much is too much for you? Do what you can until you start to feel overtrained, then back off a bit. Read up on overtraining on the net, but symptoms include tiredness, fatigue, not sleeping well, lowered appetite, and general malaise.

5. Swimming and cycling are great in my opinion. Both are low/no impact. Swimming has the benefit of working the full body, also. How you do them can vary. If you want to lose bodyfat, high intensity interval training has been proven to burn the most fat. But personally, when I'm dieting, I like to do long sessions of low intensity. If you're looking for general health and fitness, I would say a mix would be best.

6. Depends on the type of cardio session. If you've done a long intense session, you want a good hit of protein and some fast acting carbs - something around 40g of whey and 60g dextose (this will vary on your bodyweight, but is a reasonable starting point). If you don't wanna go down the route of buying protein powder and dextrose - just get some flavoured low-fat milk and drink that after your session... about a litre of that will provide about what I mentioned, only the protein isn't "fast acting", but whatever. If you've done a a low intensity session, I don't think you need any sort of special PWO meal - you haven't tapped stored glycogen, so just eat whatever you usually would.

Only other thing I wanted to comment on was I get the feeling you're trying to build muscle and lower bodyfat at the same time? If you are, it's gonna be a very slow process. And you're gonna need a good knowledge of training and nutrition to pull it off - something it doesn't sound like you have. If you wanna lose the small amount of fat you're concerned about, my advice is to just go on a diet until you lose it - then focus on building muscle, if that's your goal.

Also, you mentioned you want to be healthier and build muscle, like the two go hand in hand. I'm not sure having more muscle makes you healthy - you could be a pro cyclist and have next to no muscle, yet be one of the healthiest persons around. If you want to build muscle to look good, then that's a different story.

Just to give you my perspective here. I have similar goals to you, except I build muscle to look good and have strength (don't really care if it's healthy or not). I do want to be healthy, though - and so I do a lot of cardio; I ride my bike a lot. I've been doing this for 10yrs now and made great progress. One thing that I think is key to that progress is really enjoying what I'm doing. I love getting out on my bike and climbing big mountains. I love getting in the gym and lifting heavy weights.

I think what you should do is find the cardio exercise that you love. You said you sit on an indoor bike for an hour? Do you enjoy that? I'm sure you'd enjoy getting out in the fresh air tearing up a trail much more, no? Or, you said you were into runing in highschool - maybe you should think about giving that another shot. Exercise becomes much more enjoyable when you actually enjoy the activity and you're not just doing it 'to be healthy', or 'lose bodyfat'. It's all about enjoying the journey and not just the destination.

Hope this helps.

joop

[Weir]

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On Tues and Thurs I usually bike for an hour.

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i am no expert, but from what i have read, this is a waste of time. There is nothing wrong with it and it will make you healthier, but if you did a shorter, more intense cardio workout, you will see more results. e.g. Bike super hard for 2 minutes, slower for a minute, super hard for 2 minutes, slower for a minute.......do something like that until you can't go anymore.

I have noticed that the two times in my life I have looked the best are when I am doing short, intense cardio (windsprints, running up stairs, other horrible stuff) and lifting weights.

Running 4-5 miles 4 or 5 times a week will knock off excess weight initially and make you feel really good, but I still look almost exactly the same even after a few months of this sort of exercise.

[EricW]

Op,

cardio is good and all but keep in mind that if you want to become really shredded or just want to lose some fat, the key is diet!

Also, I haven't read any of your other threads but in terms of being healthy, a "good" sleeping pattern will do wonders for your health! Going to bed early and rising early helps you stay within your circadian cycles!

[pr0crast]

If you want to lose fat and get shredded real quick, diet + interval sprints FTW