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Your Cardio Routine Is Making You Fat

By Featured Contributors
Jul 06, 2013
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Health Blogs Main The Spotlight features guest writers from all corners of the health industry, each
considered to be among the leading influencers in his or her field. This week's post is
written by best-selling author Jim Karas.
_________________
Are you interested in gaining weight? If you are, perform cardiovascular exercise, and
a lot of it.

Are you interested in losing weight? Then you should cut back on classic
cardiovascular exercise. Shun it, even. Abolish it. Throw out your treadmill or better
Yahoo! Health Spotlight
yet, give it to someone you don’t like as cardio doesn’t work if your goal is long-term
by Featured Contributors Yahoo! Health
weight loss.
Like
Related Topics There truly is only one reason to exercise: To increase your metabolism in order to
burn more calories 24 hours a day, seven days a week. What is the only style of 170,482 people like Yahoo! Health.
Celiac Disease
exercise that accomplishes that goal? Strength training. Increasing your metabolism
Cystic Fibrosis
through strength training is the key to successful, permanent weight loss.
Hyperthyroidism
Why? Because a classic diet coupled with cardiovascular exercise will result in weight
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loss, but it will come at a cost as 60% of the weight loss will be fat (that's good!) while
Health Topics » the remaining 40% will come from muscle (that's really, really bad!). Follow @YahooHealth on Twitter

Natural Muscle Loss After Age 20

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You never want to lose lean muscle tissue. It's simple mathematics.

One pound of muscle burns six calories per pound per day.
One pound of fat burns two calories per pound per day.

That four calorie difference may not sound like much, but for most people, that’s the
difference between living lean and living obese and even morbidly obese (defined by
those who are 100 or more pounds overweight).

To further complicate things, after the age of 20, the average person loses one-half to
seven-tenths of a pound of muscle a year. That’s 5 to 7 pounds a decade.

As women approach menopause, the rate at which they lose muscle doubles, which What is Alli?
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is why so many women begin to gain weight right around that time of life.
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4 Things Women Should Be Doing in Their Fitness Training—But Aren’t

After the age of 70, the average person loses 3 pounds of muscle—per year! And you Related Health News
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Why is this weight gain happening? It's simple—muscle loss. When you lose muscle,
your metabolism is destroyed.

You are also decimating your metabolism by dieting without exercise or dieting with
cardio. Your successful weight loss formula is dieting plus strength training. Period.

How Cardio (Negatively) Effects Your Body

In 2007, my book The Cardio-Free Diet was published and went on to become a New
York Times best-seller. The original title of the book was CARDIO KILLS, and to this
day I believe that was a far more effective representations of my opinion. That book
represented a revolutionary, highly controversial approach to exercise, which

http://health.yahoo.net/experts/yahoo-spotlight/why-your-cardio-routine-making-you-fat 7/7/2013
Your Cardio Routine is Making You Fat | Yahoo! Health Page 2 of 6

continues to gain a huge following. I firmly believe that classic cardiovascular

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exercise is a total waste of your time because it has adverse effects on your body in
the following ways: High Intensity Workouts

Your Joints: An article about "boomeritis" in The New York Times reveals that
the number two reason baby boomers visit their doctor is because of an
Fat Burning Supplements
exercise-related injury, most of which are attributable to the punishing nature
of classic cardio. Dance Workout DVDs
Your Posture: Do you really want the rounded shoulder, chin jutting alignment
of a runner, stair stepper or spin fanatic? Treatment for Obesity
Your Immunity: Want to get sick and tired? Blast the life out of your immunity,
which is what happens after 20 to 30 minutes of classic cardio. Why do you
Cure Headache
think so many marathon runners get sick post event or during training?
Your Lungs: A brilliant article by Men's Health called “Dying Breaths” proved
Mens Health Problems
that while exercising in a heavily polluted area, such as Central Park or along
Lake Shore Drive in Chicago (my hometown), you are gulping down gallons of
toxic air. You might as well put your mouth over the exhaust of your car as that Stress Relief Techniques
is the quality of what you are breathing. Just think of what those toxins are
doing to your insides? How about the wrinkled, gray pallor of most runners’ How to Stay Healthy
faces. Ever wonder why?
Your Shape: If you are shaped like a pear and do manage to lose a few ads by Yahoo!
pounds with cardio, what do you end up looking like? A smaller pear. This
won’t get me out of bed and into the gym with gusto as cardio does nothing to
change your body’s composition and often results in a big old muffin top from
all the stress.
Your Muscle: After 20 to 30 minutes, most classic, steady state
cardiovascular exercise begins to chew up your precious, calorie-burning
muscle. Shocking to realize that something you believed was the ultimate
weight-loss tool ends up being the ultimate weight-gain tool because the
moment you chew up that muscle, you are in a metabolic free fall.

But wait, there is one thing cardio doesn’t kill—your appetite. Go out for a run, burn a
few calories, and then come back and eat up twice as many calories. Translation:
Weight (and fat) gain. Doesn’t sound like a solution to me.

The 7-Minute Workout That Could Add Years to Your Life

Interval Training Works Best

Clearly exercise is a must to lose weight, so what should you be doing? Only interval-
based strength training. Here are the benefits:

Better heart health than classic cardio because exercising in intervals

enhances what is called heart rate variability, and by doing so, you reduce
your risk of heart disease much more than classic cardio.
A maintenance and increase in your lean muscle tissue. A diet without
strength training results in a diminished metabolism. I bet you always
wondered why you couldn’t keep the weight off. It’s simple, without strength
training, you are all but doomed to fail.
An enhanced after burn. You never want to worry about the calories you burn
during exercise. More important are the calories burned after exercise, called
EPOC (Excess, Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption). You get up to 38 hours
of EPOC from interval-based strength training. That is the key to long-term
weight loss success. (You get maybe two to three hours of EPOC from classic
cardio training.)
Optimized posture. When you properly balance your interval-based strength
training, you immediately see improvement in your posture.
Flat abs. Honestly, most abdominal exercises are a complete and utter waste
of time. Want to burn abdominal fat? Strength train your upper and lower body,
blast off that fat, and reveal defined abs.
Results. If you don’t believe me, take the “Jim Karas Challenge.” Go to your
gym, and look at the people performing cardio. More than likely, they are not in
shape, hanging over the machines, frowning, and burning nothing but their
precious time, which all but guarantees that they will continue to “live life
large,” and that’s not “large” in a good way. Then look at the people performing
strength training. What do you see? People who are long and lean with flat
abs, great posture, and sexy bodies. Which person would you rather be?

_____________________________________________________________________

http://health.yahoo.net/experts/yahoo-spotlight/why-your-cardio-routine-making-you-fat 7/7/2013
Your Cardio Routine is Making You Fat | Yahoo! Health Page 3 of 6

Jim Karas is unique in the weight loss and fitness industry because he combines a
degree from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania with
more than 27 years of unparalleled success as a weight-loss professional. Jim is a
four-time New York Times bestselling author, which includes his most recent NYT
bestseller, The Petite Advantage Diet.

As the fitness contributor on ABC's Good Morning America, Jim helped former cohost
Diane Sawyer lose more than 25 pounds. He has been a regular guest on The Dr. Oz
Show, The View, CNN, and Fox News, to name a few.

Jim has served as a contributing editor for Good Housekeeping magazine and has
written feature articles for countless other national publications, including "O" The
Oprah Magazine (and he helped editor-at large and Oprah’s bff, Gayle King, lose 25
pounds). Jim and his team of trainers also continue to personally work with one of
People magazine's “Sexiest Man Alive" Hugh Jackman and with countless other
celebrities, CEOs, and soccer moms in Chicago and New York.

In addition, Jim is a widely sought after as a keynote speaker for many of the
country’s most prominent corporations, trade associations, small businesses, and
special interest groups.

For more information, please visit www.jimkaras.com

The Spotlight features guest writers from all corners of the health industry, each
considered to be among the leading influencers in his or her field. This week's post is
written by best-selling author Jim Karas.

_________

Are you interested in gaining weight? If you are, perform cardiovascular

exercise, and a lot it.

Are you interested in losing weight? Then you should cut back on classic
cardiovascular exercise. Shun it, even. Abolish it. Throw out your treadmill or
better yet, give it to someone you don’t like as cardio doesn’t work if your
goal is long-term weight loss.

Why? There truly is ONLY one reason to exercise: to increase your

metabolism in order to burn more calories 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
What is the ONLY style of exercise that accomplishes that goal? Strength
training. Increasing your metabolism through strength training is the key to
successful, permanent weight loss.

Why? Because a classic diet, or a classic diet coupled with cardiovascular

exercise will result in weight loss, but it will come at a cost as 60% of the
weight loss will be fat (that's good!) while the remaining 40% will come from
muscle (that's really, really bad!).

The Benefits of Lean Muscle

You never want to lose lean muscle tissue. It's simple mathematics.

One pound of muscle burns six calories per pound per day.
One pound of fat burns two calories per pound per day.

That four calorie difference may not sound like much, but for most people,
that’s the difference between living lean and living obese and possibly,
morbidly obese (defined by those who are 100 plus pounds overweight).

To further complicate things, after the age of 20, the average person loses
one-half to seven-tenths of a pound of muscle a year. That’s 5 to 7 pounds a
decade.

As women approach menopause, the rate at which she loses muscle

doubles, which is why so many women begin to gain weight right around that
time of life.

http://health.yahoo.net/experts/yahoo-spotlight/why-your-cardio-routine-making-you-fat 7/7/2013
Your Cardio Routine is Making You Fat | Yahoo! Health Page 4 of 6

4 Things Women Should Be Doing in Their Fitness Training—But Aren’t

After the age of 70, the average person loses 3 pounds of muscle – A YEAR!
That’s a huge amount, and you wonder why some of our former, lean
celebrities blow up before our very eyes. Did I hear William Shatner and
Carrie Fisher? Come on, did young Captain Kirk or young Princess Leah
look like they had a weight problem?

Why is this weight gain happening? Simple, a loss of muscle. When you lose
muscle, your metabolism is destroyed.

You are also decimating your metabolism by dieting without exercise or

dieting with cardio. Your successful weight loss formula is dieting plus
strength training. Period.

How Cardio Effects Your Body

Back in 2007, my second New York Times bestseller, The Cardio-Free Diet
was published. The original title of the book was CARDIO KILLS, and to this
day I believe that was a far more effective representations of my opinion.
That book clearly represented a revolutionary, highly controversial approach
to exercise, which continues to gain a huge following. I firmly believe that
classic cardiovascular exercise is a total waste of your time because it has
adverse effects on the following parts of your body:

· Your Joints: An article about "boomeritis" in The New York Times reveals
that the number two reason baby boomers visit their doctor is because of an
exercise-related injury, most of which are attributable to the punishing nature
of classic cardio.

· Your Posture: Do you really want the rounded shoulder, chin jutting
alignment of a runner, stair stepper or spin fanatic?

· Your Immunity: Want to get sick, and old, and tired? Blast the life out of
your immunity, which is what happens after 20 to 30 minutes of classic
cardio. Why do you think so many marathon runners get sick post event or
during training?

· Your Lungs: A brilliant article called “Dying Breaths” proved that while
exercising in a heavily polluted area, such as Central Park (or any part of
Manhattan for that matter) or along Lake Shore Drive in Chicago (my
hometown) you are gulping down gallons of toxic air. You might as well put
your mouth over the exhaust of your car as that is the quality of what you are
breathing. Just think of what those toxins are doing to your insides? How
about the wrinkled, gray pallor of most runners’ faces. Ever wonder why?

· Your Shape: If you are shaped like a pear and do manage to lose a few (and
I mean very few) pounds with cardio, what do you end up looking like? A
smaller pear. This won’t get me out of bed and into the gym with gusto as
cardio does nothing to change your body’s composition and often results in a
big old muffin top from all the stress.

· Your Muscle: After 20 to 30 minutes, most classic, steady state

cardiovascular exercise begins to chew up your precious, calorie burning
muscle. Shocking to realize that something you believed was the ultimate
weight loss tool ends up being the ultimate weight gain tool because the
moment you chew up that muscle, you are in a metabolic free fall.

But wait, there is one thing cardio doesn’t kill – your appetite. Go out for a
run, burn a few, and then come back and eat up twice as many calories.
Translation: Weight (and fat) gain. Doesn’t sound like a solution to me.

The 7-Minute Workout That Could Add Years to Your Life

Interval Training Works Best

What should you be performing as clearly exercise is a must to lose weight?

Only interval-based strength training. Here are the benefits:

· Better heart health than classic cardio as exercising in intervals enhances

what is called heart rate variability, and by doing so, you reduce your risk of
heart disease much more than classic cardio.

http://health.yahoo.net/experts/yahoo-spotlight/why-your-cardio-routine-making-you-fat 7/7/2013
Your Cardio Routine is Making You Fat | Yahoo! Health Page 5 of 6

· A maintenance and increase in your lean muscle tissue. A diet without

strength training results in a diminished metabolism. I bet you always
wondered why you couldn’t keep the weight off. It’s simple, without strength
training, you are all but doomed to fail.

· An enhanced after burn. You never want to worry about the calories you
burn during exercise. You should exclusively focus on the calories burned
AFTER exercise, which, in technical terms, is called EPOC (Excess, Post-
Exercise Oxygen Consumption). You get up to 38 hours of EPOC from
interval-based strength training. That is the key to long term weight loss
success. (You get maybe 2-3 hours of EPOC from classic cardio training).

· Optimized posture. When you properly balance your interval-based strength

training, you immediately see improvement in your posture. Want to lose 5
pounds in 5 seconds? Stand up straight. If you don’t believe me, run to the
closest mirror. It works.

· Flat abs. Honestly, most abdominal exercises, like classic cardio, are a
complete and utter waste of time. Want to burn abdominal fat? Strength train
your upper and lower body, blast off that fat and reveal some hot, defined
abs.

· Results. If you don’t believe me, take the “Jim Karas Challenge.” Go to your
gym, and look at the people performing cardio. More than likely, they are not
in shape, hanging over the machines, frowning and burning NOTHING but
their precious time, which all but guarantees that they will continue to “live life
large,” and that’s not “large” in a good way. Then look at the people
performing strength training. What do you see? People who are long and
lean with flat abs, great posture and sexy bodies. Which person would you
rather be?

_____________________________________________________________________

Jim Karas is unique in the weight loss and fitness industry because he combines a
degree from the Wharton School of Business with over twenty-seven years of
unparalleled success as a weight loss professional. Jim is a four-time New York
Times bestselling author, which includes his most recent NYT bestseller, The Petite
Advantage Diet.

As the Fitness Contributor on ABC's Good Morning America, Jim helped former co-
host Diane Sawyer lose over 25 pounds. He has been a regular guest on The Dr. Oz
Show, The View, CNN and Fox News, to name a few.

Jim has served as a Contributing Editor for Good Housekeeping magazine and has
written feature articles for countless other national publications, including "O" The
Oprah Magazine (he helped Editor-At Large and Oprah’s bff, Gayle King, lose 25
pounds). Jim and his team of trainers also continues to personally work with People
magazine's “Sexiest Man Alive," Hugh Jackman, and with countless other celebrities,
CEOs and Soccer Moms in Chicago and New York.

In addition, Jim is a widely sought after as a keynote speaker for many of the
country’s most prominent corporations, trade associations, small businesses and
special interest groups.

For more information, please visit www.jimkaras.com

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