Cardio, cardio, cardio
“If I do tons of cardio, all the time, I will lose weight and be thin and un-bulky like all the movie stars! I will be svelt and toned and thin, thin, thin. Weights are ok occasionally, as long as they are light so I don’t build too much muscle, and the reps are high so I burn more calories.”
Does this sound like your workout mindset?
You’re wrong, and you’re wasting your time.
People, women especially (sorry, it’s just a fact- men’s goals usually aren’t to be thin) have this notion that cardio is what will melt the fat off and leave them with the thin, toned body they crave.
Does this sound like you? Are you the gym goer that has never stepped foot into the free weight room? Do you have your designated cardio machine, and don’t leave it until you reach a certain amount of minutes or burn a certain number of calories, and then stretch and maybe do a few crunches?
YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME.
Yea, you are burning calories, but you are burning them slower than you could be, and in that same time, you could be building lean muscle which will help you burn more calories every second of every day so you aren’t shackled to a machine for hours a day, only doing half the work.
How can you magically burn more calories in less time, and get more noticeable results, faster? A pill? A new gadget? A diet?
Resistance! Weights!
Weights will not make you bigger. We’ve been over this before. What they will do is get your heart rate up higher than any conventional cardio machine, and simultaneously build muscle to give you a firm, toned look. If you burn off fat, with nothing firm underneath it, you are still going to be squishy.
Strength train. Don’t be afraid. It will give you the body you dream of while you are wasting hours on the eliptical, and it’s a hell of a lot more fun.