If you're a Body for Lifer thinking about doing extra cardio, here
are some things to consider.
Too much cardio will ruin muscle gains, and the lean muscle is what gives
you a faster metabolism and permanent fat loss. Most cardio bunnies are soft with flat muscles and poor definition. Fat loss
is harder for them because their resting metabolism is much slower than somebody with more muscle mass. If you have
a lot of lean muscle, you burn calories at a higher rate even when you're just lounging around. If you sacrifice all
your new muscle to the cardio gods, then you're stuck with never-ending cardio as the only way to burn enough calories
to maintain your fat loss. That's not really a great solution. It's the same old cut-calories-cardio-your-brains-out trap
that most of us have been muddling around in for years.
Here's a good explanation of what happens. It reads like a scary bedtime
story. Be good or the catabolic spiral will get you...
~~~
As you know, your body looks at muscle as a liability because it consumes
so
many calories to maintain. When you cut back on carbs and increase cardio, your
body starts consuming its fast-twitch
fibers (the valuable size and strength
fibers) as it preserves the slow twitch fibers it needs to do the cardio.
And
long duration aerobics produces cortisol, a catabolic agent that breaks down
muscle proteins. Worse, as your strength
diminishes due to less fast-twitch
fibers, the amount of weight you can lift decreases. With less load, your body
starts
dumping even more muscle as it perceives it as unnecessary. This is known
as the dreaded catabolic spiral. Just look at
marathoners, their body has
literally eaten itself alive.
~~~
If this is your first BFL challenge, I would recommend following
the program exactly as it's written. It's designed to maximize fat loss while maintaining or gaining muscle. Nearly
all new Body for Lifers show up saying that 20 minutes three times a week isn't possibly enough. Actually, it's plenty
if you do it at a near-death-experience intensity. Most people don't. They'll be outside walking fast, or maybe reading
a magazine on a stationary bike and thinking, boy this can't possibly work. They're right! It won't work unless you *seriously*
move it. When it's over you should be red-faced, drenched in sweat, breathing like a freight train, coughing up bits
of your lungs, and flirting with the throw-up zone. If the thought of doing a few more minutes even crosses your
mind, you haven't done it right.
Think about how lean and muscular sprinters are. That brief high intensity
stuff will get you really ripped without compromising your muscle gains. The calorie burn doesn't happen while you're doing
the workout, it happens in the hours afterward when you're recovering from it. If you do that kind of intense interval training
in the morning, you'll burn calories at an accelerated rate for the rest of the day. Then you get up the next day
and do a brutal weight workout and get the same metabolic boost. And of course, you're eating the small protein and carb balanced
meals, so you can throw the thermic effect of food into the equation too. Six days a week, you're a blast furnace. It's pure
genius.
That said, I do think that most people fall short on the
rest of their daily activity. Just because the book prescribes 20 minutes of intense interval cardio doesn't mean that you
have to lie motionless the rest of the day. You can still take a kickboxing class, ride a bike, do a favorite video, or any
other fun recreational type activities that you enjoy. Just make the core workouts your priority. If you start to lack energy
or feel like you're overdoing it, the bonus activities should be the first to go. Also, as you increase your activity
it becomes even more important that you're eating all your meals and getting enough sleep. At some point there is a tradeoff
where too much cardio hurts your results more than it helps. You want to stay out of starvation mode at all costs.
Blah, blah, blah, blah...
I just had to put all of that out there for consideration. I've done it
both ways. Six meals a day, heavy weights, and brief high-intensity intervals got me the body I wanted. Cutting calories
and doing a bunch of moderate cardio just left me pudgy, hungry and bored. :-)
Renee
