We all know that cardio workouts are an excellent way to burn fat. But some people do hours of cardio each week and seem to stay the same. They don’t lose an inch. Why does this happen and how can you stop it from happening to you?
There are 2 main reasons why people do a lot of cardio yet don’t lose weight:
1. They do the wrong cardio workouts. There are great cardio workouts to lose weight and there are others which are not so good. You need to choose the right ones.
2. They do long duration, same paced cardio.
Let’s start with the second reason and see what we can do. The biggest mistake people make is that the main thing about cardio is to do it for as long as possible. To be able to stick to doing cardio for 60-90 minutes they do it at a slow-medium pace. Otherwise, you just can do cardio for so long. But this is a mistake. They’re not pushing your body to any real effort. You’re just wasting time and burning very little fat.
The key is to do intensive cardio. If you can’t handle high intensity workouts for more than a minute or 2, then do it in intervals: 1 minute of high intensity followed by a slower 1 minute and so on.
Great cardio workouts to lose fat
Some cardiovascular workouts are just easier to burn fat with since they are naturally more intensive. These include the following:
1. Running – my personal favorite and a great all body workout.
2. Jumping rope – The ultimate in-house fat burning cardio exercise.
3. Hiking – great for toning your lower body and to make a trip out of your workouts.
4. Rowing – excellent to develop upper body strength. Tremendous fat burning exercise.
You can also play a whole range of sports.
Ball games, dance classes, kick-boxing and martial arts workouts are an excellent way to do some cardio which is interesting and fun. The key is, as always, make it intensive.