decreasing cardio

K

kariev

Cathlete
Its been a while since I've been on this forum. I've taken a leave of abscence from Cathe for other instructors and lately have been missing her. I have her new workouts and only have done High Reps and LBB once. I've never done the others. Anyways, I've been doing hardly any weight work for a while and want to get back into it. I have been doing 4-5 30 minutes of cardio but I think cardio is just making me feel tired and hungry. So I was thinking of doing a rotation like this:
monday: High Reps
tuesday: cardio of choice
wed: LBB
thurs: cardio of choice
Friday: STS TB
Sat and Sun: off

What do you all think? This would be cutting down my cardio substantially so there is a little bit of anxiousness over that but I don't feel like I'm benefiting from daily cardio anymore. My body needs a change. Have any of you decreased your cardio? What effects did you have from doing so?
 
Any time I decrease my cardio, my weight goes up. I do cardio 5 days per week but I vary the intensity between HIIT, spinning classes with weighted intervals and steady-state. I lift 2-3 times per week (usually Cathe total body DVDs).

Everybody needs to find their own balance though - I'm sure you will get other responses where people have decreased their cardio and gotten great results. My body doesn't respond well to that though.

Stebby
 
My experience is as long as you keep your calorie intake in check it will be fine. I recently "fell off the wagon" in terms of clean eating and gained about 8 pounds. A week and a half ago I started journaling my calories again and am already down 5 of those pounds. At the same time, I decided I was going to get back to doing workouts that I knew weren't going to kill me- mostly circuit workouts. Good circuit workouts will keep your heartrate up during the weight segments and the calorie burn is great! I'm having more fun and feel so encouraged since the pounds are coming off :)
 
I would suggest doing one interval workout per week and one LSB (long slow boring burn.) You might be ok. Try it for a couple of weeks, definitely watch your calories and tell us how it goes. I do the cardio more for my mood than for my butt.

But at 30 min. 5x/wk you shouldn't be that hungry. You might not be getting enough healthy fats or calories to accommodate your activity level.

Alisha
 
I personally find that my size (not my scale weight) goes up with too much cardio/eating less, and comes down when lifting heavy/eating a little more. We're all so different! You can always change your approach if the new rotation isn't good for you. One thing, with me there is nearly always a two-ish pound uptick when I dramatically increase weights (say after a long layoff from an injury or illness), which appears to be from better hydrated muscles. It doesn't change clothing/tape measure size and goes away over the next few weeks. The first time it happened was a shock to see on the scale, so thought I'd mention the possibility. Good luck!
 
I agree with Rapid Breath...if you are constantly hungry, then that is usually your body saying you need more calories. Calculate your BMR (basal metabolic rate) and then find out how many calories you normally burn throughout the day (AMR) Active Metabolic Rate, and then journal what you are eating to see if you are over your under your goals....
Beyond that, don't be afraid of doing more wieghts and easing up on the cardio. Yes, cardio burns fat, but weights up your metabolic function to where even when you are not working out you are burning calories, i.e., when you are sleeping! Nice! We can be fat burning machines even when we are snoozin!
I agree you should probably consider one day a week of an hour of cardio at least and then make the others, fast intense 20-30 mins. And keep those weight workouts just as you have them!
If your body is telling you it needs less cardio than it probably does. Our bodies constantly give us cues and we have to listen. Recently I cut back on cardio too, and went through a heavy power yoga phase. Now I'm back to heavy heavy weights, shorter power yoga workouts, and more running again. I go in phases so that my body never gets used to anything! Variety is the spice of life and keep life an adventure!
 
Thank you all for the advice and replies. I know that no one can say what will happen and I just need to try it and see what happens. I guess I view STS TB, LBB, and HR as unconventional cardio as these workouts do get my HR up there. So in reality I'm getting some sort of cardio in daily as these do have a cardio effect for me. I'm definately do for a change and I think this may be it. I've noticed to that subconciously that when I do cardio and automatically think I can eat more. Days that I don't do cardio i'm more careful with my diet.
 
That's true for Alot of folks! Remember: to lose you must have a calorie deficit, so keep calories under the mark no matter if it's card day or leg day. Most of us usually over- estimate our calorie burn and underestimate our calorie intake:)
 
So I revisted lower body blast this a.m. This is my 2nd time doing this workout. I wore my HRM to see how hard my heart was working. For most of the workout it stayed over 140bpm and during the cardio blasts up to 160bpm. WOW! Definately a cardio factor to this workout. Lots of fun!
 
Something you might try to get back in a bit more cardio (but not enough to spike your appetite) is to do a longer cardio 'warm-up' before your weight workouts. I like the warm-up in Cardio Kicks, for example, which is a nice 12 minutes long.

Also, I think that by raising the metabolism a bit more than with a short warm-up, the metabolism would tend to stay at that higher level throughout the subsequent strength workout.
 
I have always found that for me, calories are the key factor for weight loss. It doesn't matter if I burn 100 calories through exercise or 800 - if I go above a certain calorie count, I don't lose weight. Since huge cardio sessions make me feel like I'm starving all day long, I usually cut back a bit if I'm trying to lose weight. I still work out, and I even still do cardio, but I try to keep it moderate so I don't tip my body into "cookie monster mode." That's when you wander around like a zombie moaning "Carbs! Caaaaaaarrrrbs!" until you finally smash open the cabinets and start shoveling Oreos into your face nonstop. Again, I'm speaking only of my own personal experience here. ;)

Lately I've become totally obsessed with barre workouts, so I'm walking the dogs for cardio and doing a variety of barre workouts almost every day. It's a nice break from the more punishing routines I was doing over the winter - I pretty much burned out on all high-intensity and I'm taking it easy for now. Lost 6 pounds last month!
 
Karie,

I used to be able to get away with 3 days of cardio per week but that no longer works for me now.

More specifically...When I did an X rotation back in 2007 I did the classic rotation with 3 days of cardio, 3 days of weight work and yoga x one evening. I didn't lose any weight but leaned out and defined my muscles like crazy. I was thrilled with the results!

On the flip side...back around March of last year (2010) I attempted the 3 month STS rotation as produced (with 3 days of weights alternated with 3 days of cardio). I gained several pounds and blew up like a balloon in short order. It was gross and it was showing no signs of backing down by the end of the 3rd week of the rotation so I stopped STS dead in it's tracks.

I switched gears to a cardio heavy rotation (averaged 5 days of cardio per week out of 6 days of working out w/1-2 f/b weight work outs) and did that for 2 months to get my body back.

This taught me a very valuable lesson about how my body has changed over the last few years and it now NEEDS the cardio or I will obviously gain weight.

Right now I am in the middle of a 6 month STS rotation (Meso 2) and have been doing more cardio with it (4-5 days every week) and I am not having any problems at all with weight gain. In fact, I am THRILLED with the results! They are the same types of results I saw with the X...now that I added in more cardio that is!

Moral of the story? You never know until you try! Try it for a week or 2. If you are not happy with the results then add some cardio back in. Perhaps try slowly cutting back on the cardio instead of just suddenly cutting it out. Our bodies change so you never know what may work for you from one year to the next. Just gotta give it a shot and see what happens! What works for others may not work for you. I sure wish it were that easy though! ;):)
 
Thanks guys for your stories. I love reading about everyones results. When I have done 3 days cardio with 3 days weights in the past I have gained weight in the past. So I do know my body needs cardio. I'm not willing to eat less as I eat 1500 cals right now and any less would be too little. Whats weird is that last week I did supreme 90 3 days per week with 5 days per week of 30 minute cardio (varying intensities). I actually lost a couple of pounds. I'm a endo/mesomorph so I have the tendency to gain easily. I'm trying to figure yout how to use cathe's new weight workouts that will allow me to do 30 minutes of cardio daily and have my workout not exceed 60 minutes in length. I guess I would just have to do the upper/lower body premixes.
 
I do 60-90 minutes of cardio of varying intensity 6x week, lift heavy 5x week (taking rest weeks every few weeks and then opting for "100"s and yoga during that time) and keep my calories under 1200. Just this week I started a carb cycling diet approach where I go low-low-high-no-low-high-no. On the days I have my high carbs I actually have my lowest calories. I'm hoping that the carb cycling may help me shed about 7 more pounds, as I've heard a lot of folks say they have great success with this approach. Good luck in finding your balance. It's not easy to do.
 
Whats weird is that last week I did supreme 90 3 days per week with 5 days per week of 30 minute cardio (varying intensities). I actually lost a couple of pounds.
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Karie,
I have trained similarly to this in the past myself and it has worked for me too. I would do a little cardio and a little weight training every day. It worked wonderfully for me and I was never bored. My only problem was I really never got to do fun cardios like Rythmic Step in full and I missed that. One day I will go back to that type of rotation but perhaps leave 1 day for all cardio so I can do the fun ones in full. :)
 
I do 60-90 minutes of cardio of varying intensity 6x week, lift heavy 5x week (taking rest weeks every few weeks and then opting for "100"s and yoga during that time) and keep my calories under 1200.
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Wow. I am in awe of your ability to train so hard and keep your calories so low! The lowest I ever got when I was tracking calories was in the 1400 range. I was doing Slim Series at the time though which is lower intensity then Cathe work outs. Was never able to get below the 1500's otherwise...
 
Fit_mommy said:
Karie,
I have trained similarly to this in the past myself and it has worked for me too. I would do a little cardio and a little weight training every day. It worked wonderfully for me and I was never bored. My only problem was I really never got to do fun cardios like Rythmic Step in full and I missed that. One day I will go back to that type of rotation but perhaps leave 1 day for all cardio so I can do the fun ones in full. :)
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Thanks Wendy! I agree with you on the fun cardios. For me, when I do Cathe's workouts I like to do them as is from beginning to end. I don't really ever do the premixes. Its like m body does best with a little bit of both (weights/cardio) each day but mentally I like to do just one (either weights or cardio) per day for like an hour.
 
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