When it comes to fitness gadgets, one of the most popular items is the heart rate monitor. Heart rate monitors can be a great way to track calorie burn, and measure recovery levels during overly-stressed periods — but they are not always the best in every workout situation. In fact, when it comes to lifting, Heart Rate Monitors are not accurate for lifting.
Heart Rate Monitors are not accurate for lifting
If you jump on a cardio machine for a half hour workout, you’ll notice a spike in calorie burn. If you spend the same amount of time doing a lifting routine, you’ll notice you don’t burn as many calories as you did in your cardio session. So cardio is the obvious winner, right?
Not quite.
When it comes to lifting weights, the bulk of the calorie burn comes in the EPOC (afterburn). Afterburn, as the name suggests, is the period of time after your workout concludes in which your body’s metabolic rate is much higher than normal. So while you may burn fewer calories during the initial lift, you burn more overall in the hours/days following due to boosted metabolism. On the flip side, when it comes to cardio, what you see is what you get. This means is that when your cardio workout ceases, so does your calorie burn.
This can put heart rate monitors at a disadvantage when it comes to lifting, because they can dissuade “burn addicts” from strength training. Being addicted to the burn often causes people to place more focus on cardio than necessary, because they love to see that number spike during workouts. And I get it. We all want more bang for our buck – but when we let an initially low number on our heart rate monitor dissuade us from lifting, we’re heading down the wrong road. Because muscle is the key to a healthy metabolism and high quality of life, we can’t count on the number of calories burned during the workout to tell us how well we’re doing.
The type of workout, doesn’t immediately correlate to the burn that your HRM will show. This is true not only of weight lifting, but also with different types of cardio, as with HIIT/interval type workouts. Longer cardio sessions may show a higher burn than short, quick, HIIT style workouts. Circuits may show a higher calorie burn that lift/rest/lift style training. The key is to understand that both weight lifting and interval type workouts (anaerobic) lead to building (and keeping) more muscle than their alternatives. As you continue to build more muscle, your resting metabolic rate continues to increase (think more calories burned simply by sitting on the couch! Yeaaaahhhhh!).
If you’re attached to your heart rate monitor, have no fear. The key is to make your heart rate monitor work for you – use it during cardio to gauge effectiveness and adaptability and keep in mind that wearing it during lifting isn’t going to give you an accurate result. If you’re bent on trying to get a more accurate number, you can look into adding something like a Fitbit to your arsenal, which will do a slightly better job of helping you understand how to properly fuel your body. Just be sure to note that when it’s all said and done, even these “more accurate” devices typically underestimate the amount of cals burned. So don’t use either as an excuse to undereat. ;)
Keeping the limitations of your HRM in mind will help you to continue including the workouts that are giving you the most return on your investment, while sprinkling in moderate doses of activities that you love. Seek true balance, rather than constantly fighting the uphill battle of too much cardio, and zero weights, to the detriment of your fat loss goals.
Remember: “cardio for fun, weights to transform!”
~Kiki
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Diet and workout fads come and go. When a workout or diet plan becomes popular, it’s natural to feel like it’s the thing to do.
Popular marketing has taught for years, that if you introduce a product enough times (usually around seven), you move to the top of a persons’ mind, and they’ll actually begin to consider something that they may have once dismissed. Savvy parents often use this same tactic with their little ones — casually introducing veggies at every meal, but not forcing them, in hopes that the child will eventually try them on their own. Diet and exercise is no different.
While you may easily look past a certain style of eating/exercising at first glance, after another dozen or so “introductions” (via mags/commercials/social media) you may actually find yourself wondering if you should drop your current routine to instead do this “new” one. Although the most successful diets tend to hold to no-nonsense approach (adhering to best practices in nutrition, exercise, and a heavy dose of patience), every once in a while something comes along that promises faster results, and all-out war on those “stubborn-fat” areas.
Whether it’s slashing your calories, taking special supplements, doing excessive cardio, intermittent fasting, working out twice a day or cutting a food completely out of your diet, certain approaches tend to gain traction as a surefire way to give you the edge. Understanding the meaning of “edge” is key to understanding if/when you need to employ such an approach. Even though many of the strategies have roots based in science, the media (and admittedly, the fitness industry) does a great job of over-emphasizing marginal gains. The average Jane is often misled by the hype, not understanding, that marginal gain tactics are only beneficial in certain circumstances — such as when you’re looking at reaching the finish line and are fast approaching a date/vacation/competition or are an elite exerciser/professional athlete (and only when all other bases are covered).
It’s important to understand the timing to employ certain tactics at the right time (for you). Let’s take a look at four critical things you MUST understand before diving into the next great diet/exercise hope:
The Tactic Will Fail if Applied too Soon
Certain tricks of the trade are meant to help really attack stubborn-fat areas. But the problem lies in the fact that many of us have a fuzzy vision of what stubborn fat means in the industry.
Isn’t all fat stubborn? LOL. Not quite.
Plateau busting, stubborn-fat-loss strategies are typically aimed toward those who are at the vanity weight stage – not someone who is still in the middle of their journey. Vanity weight loss applies to those that are looking to loose the last five pounds, step on a competition stage, do a fitness DVD/photoshoot, etc.. In other words, you have a four pack…but are looking to uncover the last two.
If you employ a workout or diet tactic too soon (before it’s the right time for you), it will ultimately fail. The end result won’t be what “everyone else’s” end result is/was. The tactic may work temporarily, but you will eventually hit a plateau — with no room for making more tweaks. When that happens, the small dent that you may have quickly made in your progress, likely won’t be worth how much harder you’ll have made your journey.
Because many of these are meant to be temporary, finish line tactics…being no where near the finish line when you apply them simply means you have no other tricks up your sleeve.
The Tactic Is Meant to Give You the Edge After All Avenues are Exhausted
Once all avenues are exhausted, certain tactics can be beneficial, but only after you’ve put in work. People often lean on stubborn-fat-loss workout/diet plans because they want to go from A-Z without doing all the steps in between. The steps are where the magic happens. Skipping (or rushing) steps because you want results faster, almost always hurts you more than it helps. We often seek the stubborn fat loss tactics in frustration of having “tried everything,” but we must make sure that we are not just tossing those words around lightly. If you’ve tried everything – for a couple of weeks at a time – then you haven’t really tried anything.
True transformation takes time. Attempts to speed through that typically involves lots of wheel spinning and/or speeding up only to land back at square one (or worse!). Make sure that you are giving proven, long-term, sustainable tactics enough time to work before launching into marginal gains territory.
If you haven’t conquered the basics, it’s not the right time. And don’t just try the basics before moving on…nail them.
The Tactic May Be Viewed as a Quick Fix
When considering switching things up, always ask yourself “why?” Sounds simple, but sometimes we must check our mentality to know if we’re on the right track. If you find yourself looking for an out or wanting a quick fix, then you’re taking the wrong approach. If this isn’t your first rodeo, then you already know that it’s never been about losing the weight. Keeping the weight off has always been the hardest part. So if you’re looking for a way around building the habits that will actually aid in keeping the weight off, check yourself ;)
Disordered eating, the new normal? Check out our interview with fitness competitor and author Dani Shugart.
There are certain habits, and several mental transformations that must occur in order to have sustainable success on this journey. If you’re evading them by going after a quick fix instead, reevaluate your why. Are you avoiding dealing with who you are, thinking that losing weight will solve all your problems? (Spoiler alert: it won’t)
Try as we might, we’ll never be able to separate physiology (or biology) from psychology. Your mind will (and must) make the transition with you – especially if you plan on not only surviving this journey, but actually thriving in LIFE. Ditch the quick fix mentality, and be all in.
The Tactics Avoid The Basics
Eating enough veggies/food/protein/fiber, drinking enough water, lifting weights etc. are all diet and workout basics. When starting a routine, people often want to avoid the beginning, most important parts/steps because they’re boring, not fun, or just plain hard. We often associate fat loss with torture, and because of that want to spend the least amount of time to achieve results.
The ability to say no to certain foods or the feeling of hunger makes many people feel like they have control. Unfortunately, this can lead to eating disorders or disordered eating– we categorize foods into things we can and can’t have. But when you practice a cutthroat or hardcore tactic for too long, you can eventually create health problems, such as adrenal fatigue. There’s always a better way to get where you want to go and get the results and progress you are hoping for.
Consistency in the basics (fundamentals) must come first. If a program/diet/teaching that you’re hearing is “new and improved” and promotes a particular pill, shot, or type of workout, with complete disregard to the fundamentals – you’re looking at a quick fix. Diet with the end and mind, and leave all the quick fixes, and stubborn fat loss tactics for those that actually need (and get paid for doing) them.
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When you start anything new, there’s typically a learning curve – and EM2WL is no exception. Many of us step in to this journey with similar backgrounds, having made similar mistakes, and hit similar brick walls. We decide to take a chance on this “eat more” thing, and see where it takes us.
Then, many of us end up making one of two HUGE newbie mistakes. Landing ourselves back at square one.
(Periscope snippet. Blog recap below video…)
Mistake #1: Over committing
Biting off more than you can chew is a common newbie mistake for the over achievers in the Fam. They “rip the bandaid” when increasing cals, move straight into intense, high volume exercise routines they find on the internet/social media, and purpose to eat 100% clean…100% of the time. Go hard, or go home – right? If you’re newer to proper ways of eating, and still in your first 1-2 years of lifting, I gotta keep it real and say, “wrong.”
When just getting started, you don’t need to do everything that people who have been working out for years are doing. After a certain amount of time in this journey, we all will HAVE to step it up – but doing so before it’s time can actually hurt your progress in the long run.
One reason we often get caught in the dieting yo-yo is because we mistakenly assume that if we eat at a minimum and workout at a maximum, then we can get results faster. We eventually find out that all we really did was speed through the stop sign, only to get pulled over for reckless driving. Unfortunately, this approach leads to eventual burnout, isn’t sustainable, and can kill your metabolism. Think less is more when it comes to working out, and eat according to your activity (in other words, match them — not increasing one, while decreasing the other). Start slow and take baby steps that make sense for you and your life so you can create a healthy, sustainable lifestyle.
Mistake #2: Under committing
Starting anything new can be scary. But when you get too scared thinking about what it will take to achieve your goals, you may find yourself never even starting.
For people just beginning, the idea of eating more and working out less can be scary, backwards-sounding, and confusing. The under-committed beginner (my own hands waving wildly in the air at this point) wants to know all the information before diving in. Understandable, but one will never really be able to know (or even comprehend) all of the the information before embarking on a new endeavor. Every new journey has areas that you will not understand until you are in them. Someone could describe it to you perfectly, but you will never know for yourself until you experience it. Remember transitioning from teen, to adult? Or becoming a new parent? There were likely parts of those journeys that someone probably did tell you about, but you didn’t understand until you were in it.
Convincing yourself that you must have every strand of proof, know how to prevent every obstacle, predict every milestone — with exact timelines to boot — is what we call analysis paralysis. Unlike becoming the Over-Committed-Burnout, being an Under-Committed-Over-Analyzer, can lead you to never really starting. When you find yourself overcomplicating an issue, remember that it’s typically a sign that you are actually procrastinating on doing what you know you need to do. Gather “enough” info and just start. You can always tweak as you go.
Why it Matters
You may have started off doing too much too soon, and fallen away – or perhaps you’re still doing nothing at all with the info you have. Either way, the end result is…frustration with not moving forward. Standing still, falling behind, or even running in place, are usually the exact reasons that we started this journey. Yet, this version of standing still tends to weigh heavier on us (because we were scared from the start!), and causes us to want ditch eating more, and run to the nearest quick fix (#comfortzone).
I get it. This journey ends up being harder than most of us ever thought it should be, and tests our faith as we continue to discover that virtually everything we ever thought we knew about dieting was wrong. Progress should come slow, not fast. We should be lifting weight, not just doing cardio. Inches may drop even when the scale doesn’t. And so on…
Be patient and trust the process. The key is to remember that this truly is a lifestyle, not just a means to an end. So whether you need to turn things down a notch, or simply start – know that you’re not alone. We’re all navigating these waters together, and every person who has had success on this journey has come to a similar crossroad (hmmm…metaphor overload? LOL).
In a world of instant gratification, remember that you’ve been there, done that. Focus instead on sustainability, and slowly becoming the person that deserves, earns, and maintains, the rewards that only delayed gratification can provide (you know…the ones that have been eluding you for.ev.er?)
You’ve got this, Fam.
~Kiki
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If you’ve dieted in the past or are currently dieting, you may have experienced (or heard recently about) metabolic issues. Headlines, infomercials, and even your fave fitspo are doling out method after method for how to “fix” the damage done to your metabolism. We hunt for the best foods, drinks, supplements, workouts, and “bulletproof” ways to turn back the hands of time (dang you, aging process!!). Some are in denial, others using it as a crutch – but we can’t deny that our metabolisms seem to be doing everything in their power to work against us.
But what if the one aspect that we often glaze over/assume is negotiable when seeking to rebuild our metabolisms, is key to pulling this whole thing off? And where the heck does dieting (and finally losing that weight) come in to play?
When you’re dieting, the amount of calories you burn literally becomes less – anywhere from 300 (average) to 800 calories fewer. This change can happen in as little as a two month time frame because of what dieting does to our metabolism. This adaptation, in addition to the natural aging process of the body that also slows the metabolism, can create the perfect backdrop for what is now trending as “metabolic damage.”
The effects of short bouts of dieting can affect your body for up to a year. Longer/repeated bouts can make this unwanted adaptation last even longer! The approach of eating less and working out more has a failure rate of 95%. For a generation that has more diet plans, health food stores, gyms (and internet access to pics of the fittest people on the planet) than ever before, the obesity epidemic is only rising. And it’s not for lack of trying…or at least not in full.
Sedentary lifestyles (thanks again, technology!), of course, contributes heavily to slowed metabolic rates. Hormones also affect metabolism, as do environmental pollutants. Out of all these things, though, your muscles relationship to your metabolism carries the highest weight (literally). Most diets place primary focus (and success rating) on the amount of weight loss. However, twenty to fifty percent of the loss you experience during a typical, low-calorie/high cardio diet is muscle mass. Seventy-five percent of your BMR (basal metabolic rate) — the amount of calories you burn just being alive — is composed of your muscle. Therefore the more muscle you have, the higher your BMR becomes. And vice versa.
This is important to understand in the scheme of weight loss. Striving to lose only weight – while paying little attention to where the weight comes from – is destructive to the maintenance of any perceived success. And if you’ve ever lost and regained weight before, you know that keeping the weight off is harder than getting it off in the first place. The second you go back to eating “normal,” game over.
So while you may end up weighing less after any given diet, it will be to the detriment of your metabolism. Those who simply lose weight from dieting, require less calories to maintain that weight than someone (of the same weight) who has never dieted. The more times you repeat this process, the lower your calorie requirements are. It’s a nasty metabolic game that you don’t want to play, and will likely never win.
Kashonna focused on building muscle, and no longer worries about the scale!
Regardless of whether or not you want a muscular look, they key is the look that you want (less fat), without having to reduce calories into oblivion, requires muscle. The point of resistance training is to preserve the muscle mass you have and build more. If your muscle mass is decreasing due to the diet you’re on, then your plan of attack is counterproductive. Set your diet/exercise plan up for success. Dieting with no exercise will result in the highest loss of muscle. If you’re dieting with some cardio, you will lose slightly less muscle. If you’re dieting and doing resistance training, you will lose little to no muscle – this is key!
The bottom line? The best way to fix your metabolism is to build and rebuild muscle mass, not just lose fat (or worse, lose weight). Having more muscle will increase the amount of calories that your body requires, and will aid you in finally losing the fat. If you’ve already played Metabolic Roulette for longer than you can remember, then the steps to healing your metabolism will eventually become inevitable. Eat and exercise in a way that keeps or adds to the muscle mass you already have and you’ll be heading in the right direction to fix and maintain your metabolism at its highest efficiency.
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Contrary to my personal anti-treadmill stance, cardio can absolutely play a role in fat loss. But just like everything else in life, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
Although our motto here at EM2WL is “cardio for fun, weights to transform,” we DO recognize the value that cardio can add to a goal-specific workout plan (and that fact that some of you REALLY actually…umm…love it). So it’s understandable that cardio lovers in the Fam, striving to heal their metabolisms and finally lose fat tend to panic a bit when they hear anything about doing “too much” cardio!
When it comes to cardio, it seems that people either love it or hate it. Whether you’re a group instructor, runner, or despise cardio, your workouts should work for you, not against you. In order for this to happen, you must understand the purpose behind each type of workout, how it pertains to your goals, and apply it accordingly.
Cardio is endurance exercise. The more you do, the better your body adapts, and builds up the ability to be able to withstand the same circumstances next time.
This adaptation is great if the goal is to cover a certain distance in increasingly quicker amounts of time (think: training for a marathon), or simply last longer in Zumba class. As far as general heart-health is concerned, this is usually the goal.
Your new level of efficiency is usually noticeable during workouts when you’re suddenly able to do more cardio than you initially were physically capable of doing just weeks/months before. For example: you may have originally broken a sweat doing ten minutes of cardio before, but now you have to do fifteen minutes to get to the same level.
If you were formally breathless chasing the kids, or climbing a flight of stairs – this type of adaptation is an amazing/healthy feeling. However, when the goal is fat loss, this adaptation means you now have to do more work to achieve the same results you initially were achieving with your cardio-only workouts.
Adaptation = doing the same work for lesser results.
When it comes to adaptation, strength training is no exception. If you lift the same weight day in and out, your body eventually adapts and that weight just won’t cut it. You’ll have to introduce new stimuli to keep getting results, or risk hitting the infamous plateau.
But there’s good news when it comes to weight lifting adaptation: all you have to do to bust past that plateau is to lift heavier weights! The duration of your weight lifting sessions will never have to change (like your cardio has to) so long as you’re increasing your weights. This allows you to still be efficient without putting in extra time. Weight lifting gives you the most bang for your buck.
In other words: endurance exercise improves your endurance, but doesn’t necessarily contribute to fat loss beyond the initial newbie phase.
Lifting improves your strength, endurance, lean body mass (muscle!) and assists in fat loss.
So how do you know that you’ve entered the “adaptation zone?”
In addition to monitoring your performance during the workout, you can turn to your heart rate monitor (HRM) for clues. Using a HRM – or other wearable fitness device that monitors HR (like Fitbit) will allow you to see when your body gets to a point where it becomes more efficient at cardio.
As endurance improves, your HRM will subsequently show that your calorie burn is lessening for common cardio activities. When you notice that you’re burning less cals boing the same amount of work, your body has adapted. At that point you must either increase time, or change up your workout style to continue getting results.
If, for instance, you’re training for a race or are focused on increasing endurance, remember increased efficiency is in fact a good thing. When that calorie adaptation occurs, you’ve just shortened your race time. Increasing the time of the workout is actually the goal in that case. On the flip side, when it comes to fat loss, inefficiency is key.
Doing the same workouts, but burning less cals, would mean that over time you’d be eating too much (even on a diet) – and eventually start GAINING weight.
That is what we’re trying to prevent when we provide warnings about “too much cardio” during your reset or early stages of fat loss. It’s not about removing something that you love, but rather understanding the roles that workout style plays in your fat loss journey.
There is no magic, universal number for how much cardio is too much. By using the tips above, your best answer is to listen to your body and evaluate often to see where your efficiency levels are at and if they’re conducive to the physique goals you’re trying to achieve.
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Should you just do cardio to lose weight? How heavy is heavy lifting? Do "strength" DVDs count? What if you don't want to lift? Sign up now for in-depth info on strength training and fat loss. You'll also receive special vids and free workout plans to help you get the most from your time in the gym.
If you’re attached to your heart rate monitor, have no fear. The key is to make your heart rate monitor work for you – use it during cardio to gauge effectiveness and adaptability and keep in mind that wearing it during lifting isn’t going to give you an accurate result. If you’re bent on trying to get a more accurate number, you can look into adding something like a Fitbit to your arsenal, which will do a slightly better job of helping you understand how to properly fuel your body. Just be sure to note that when it’s all said and done, even these “more accurate” devices typically underestimate the amount of cals burned. So don’t use either as an excuse to undereat. ;)
The Tactic Will Fail if Applied too Soon
Once all avenues are exhausted, certain tactics can be beneficial, but only after you’ve put in work. People often lean on stubborn-fat-loss workout/diet plans because they want to go from A-Z without doing all the steps in between. The steps are where the magic happens. Skipping (or 
You may have started off doing too much too soon, and fallen away – or perhaps you’re still doing nothing at all with the info you have. Either way, the end result is…frustration with not moving forward. Standing still, falling behind, or even running in place, are usually the exact reasons that we started this journey. Yet, this version of standing still tends to weigh heavier on us (because we were scared from the start!), and causes us to want ditch eating more, and run to the nearest quick fix (#comfortzone).
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