Latest / Cameron's Conversations: The last weight loss podcast you'll ever need. / Episode 81: Should you do more cardio?
Transcript
- Cameron: Welcome to the Cameron's Conversations podcast. And in today's episode, I want to talk all about whether you should do more cardio. So this is a question that I think comes up quite a lot. And I think this can come from, I guess, a couple of different angles. We'll talk about the health aspect first, right? So sometimes someone says, should I do a bit of cardio for my health? It probably makes sense to do so. Luke, even if you train in the gym twice a week, and do your weights, that is going to go a long way to your general fitness. And there is actually some benefit from your cardiovascular system because you are getting your heart rate up, you are working a little, are not working a little, but working a good bit. So you're get something from that. But there's no arguing that it's a bit like the right tool in the right place. So it has a knock-on effect from doing weight training that your cardiovascular system is probably better than someone who doesn't do any weight training at all. But it's not gonna be better than someone who does some cardio. So if you run twice a week or you cycle twice a week or you walk up a hill, these things are going to have a knock-on effect. And I do think there's a lot of merit in having a bit of cardio in your week. But as I've just touched on, I think people get really bogged down in equating cardio to running. Look, running is great if that's your thing or you want it to be your thing. Cool. Do you need to run to get cardio? Absolutely not. There are plenty of weeks that I... I play basketball obviously so there's running involved in that I suppose by default. You're running up and down a court but I don't go on specific runs. There's been plenty of periods of time and I've still been very fit because I've done other things. There's been times in my life where in the summer months not really done any running at all because I've been cycling or I've been hill walking and I've been doing a lot of hill walking at the weekends and unsurprisingly going uphill for three hours before coming back downhill for three hours particularly going uphill part is good cardio. Your heart rate sits nice and high. I get a good amount of fitness from that as well. There are lots of ways to swing this, what am gonna say, skin this particular can, is that what I'm trying to say? Anyway, it doesn't really matter. The point is there's lots of different ways of trying to do this kind of cardio thing, and actually it's about figuring out what's best for you. So, those are definitely reasons you should do it. When it comes to weight loss, a bit more mixed. A lot people focus on cardio before they've sorted their nutrition out, which doesn't make sense. Now, there is a scenario where someone has nailed their nutrition down, it's in really good spot, they're doing all the right things, they're being very deliberate with it, and a bit of additional cardio could help their weight loss. Cool, that's fine. But when you are not making progress in the first place, cardio is not your saviour, it's not your solution. If you're not making progress in the first place, it is absolutely your nutrition that needs to change. If you're looking to get a three to five percent increase in your weight loss from doing a bit more cardio, cool, absolutely build that into your week. but that's probably what you're realistically gonna get out of it when we look at the kind of numbers on it. It's not gonna be that significant. I'm not saying it's negligible, because it's something, but it only makes so much difference. And until your nutrition's in good spot, it's not gonna help massively. So yes, you probably should be doing cardio, because it's really good for your heart health, for your lung health. It's nice to be able to run for a bus or a train and not feel like you're gonna have a heart attack. No one likes that when you're like, ⁓ my God, I'm so out of breath, I feel awful. Like that's not a nice feeling in general. So yes, cardiovascular fitness helps and it is really good. The long term health outcomes for someone who has better cardiovascular fitness are massive. Although there is still a suggestion that actually potentially weight training may be more important than, especially as we get older and to older ageing actually, the most important part's probably gonna be the strength and muscle mass piece and doing resistance training. But at any level if you can do both that's better. But the trick now is, hope works for you. I have clients that have recently picked up running, or who have run before and still run. I have clients who do a couple of spin classes a week. I have clients that like doing cycling, like road cycling. I have another client that likes doing mountain biking. And I have other clients that like doing hill walking like I do, because they see a tall thing and think, you know what, it'd be really good fun to walk straight up that. And they do that. I have other clients that play badminton or squash. One of my clients plays like four or five squash sessions a week. He's absolutely bonkers for it. plays loads of it, incredibly fit guy. And all of these things are absolutely valid. So don't ever let someone poo poo on your of method of cardio, but I've got a client who does Zumba twice a week as well. Now some of those things are more like, is objectively squash going to be giving you a bigger cardiovascular effect than Zumba? Yeah, for sure. Like watch a squash game, it's so intense, it's so full on, but. The person that does, I know my squash playing client wouldn't be doing Zumba, and I know my Zumba sort of doing client wouldn't be doing squash. So the point is this, is that it's about finding the things that work for you. And actually that client who loves Zumba gets a big social benefit from it. They like it, it's really good, there's a coordination element, there's all sorts of cool stuff as well, goes with that. They love it, they really enjoy it, and they do it consistently. Therefore, they get really good results from it because they're doing it long term. Now that's where the magic is, is to find something that works for you. For me, right now I'm getting quite a lot of cardio in deliberately because honestly I like feeling really fit. I've gone through periods where I've just weight trained and I felt really strong and I've moved well and I felt good. But there's no doubt about it, but when I do one, two extra cardio sessions on top of that, I feel fitter. It helps, I like doing that as well. And I play a sport obviously, so there's a demand in my sport, a really significant demand of really good fitness. know, the sort of, when you're playing in a league as I do. the demand on fitness is really high, like it really is, even if I'm not necessarily playing like national level like a used to anything like that, it's more recreational now. There's still a difference in like, you you've got to be fit for it. So for me, I feel great. And you know, I walked up a hill the other day and my heart rate barely got out of the kind of like zone one. So it was like warmup zone and then zone one on my Garmin, barely got out of that because I'm feeling so fit right now. It's easy. My body weight is a bit lighter as well because I've also dropped weight. That probably helped too. But like, I'm finding that, that my fitness is really good and I feel great for it. But I don't know if I would be using it as a major tool for fat loss. I think for most people they do not have the time to have the impact. Look, there are exceptions. I have a client who's a long distance cyclist and a client who's a really serious long distance runner. They're losing a bit weight right now. Does that help them? Sure. They're running like six, seven hours a week. Yeah, probably does help them rather a lot. But most people don't have the time for that. I wouldn't have the time to add that in. I don't want to. I'd rather just get my nutrition down. absolutely involve cardio, but do it for the right reasons. Do it to feel good. Do it because actually breaking a little bit of a sweat, even if it's not crazy intensive like a hard game of squash or a big long run, even if it's doing a bit of a sweat, getting your heart rate up and building in gradually is great. And that's the kind of final point I want to make is if you've not been doing any cardio for a little while, you do not need to do as much as you think to get a benefit. If you go from doing nothing to running two and a half K. twice a week, you get fitter. If you go from doing nothing to one Zumba session a week, you get fitter. If you jump on the bike at home, because you've got that bike that's been gathering dust, or that cross trainer that everyone's like, mum seemed to buy, and like 20 years ago, right? Like, that's just sat there and it's just a closed horse now. Like, absolutely, go on that for 20 minutes, stick a programme on you like, that's fine. If that's your kind of version of it, that works great. I have clients that do that. I a client who loves just sitting watching a TV programme on their bike. like they have a little at home bike and it works great, they're really good. They do about three 45 minute sessions a week because they just watch a programme after they finish work and then they make dinner and whatever. That works great for them, they get loads in from doing that. They get two hours of cardio in a week and they just watch a programme. Great, that's someone else's, like everybody's definition of fitness can be different, we just probably want to get a nice mix of strength training and cardio and how much you get again has to be justified on logistics because people say, ⁓ how much would be good? And I'm like, how much time do you have? You've got to be pragmatic about it. Getting once a weekend's great. If you get a run in once a week and then you go for a nice long walk at the weekend, great. If you go just to do a Zumba session once a week and then you can go for a cycle or run or a walk on the weekend, cool. Just try and take one or two things off a week and that's the way. It doesn't need to be more complicated than that. That will keep you at a good level of fitness. Hopefully that made sense and gives you a little bit of context around cardio. If you are working on your own fitness and you want to kick on even further and much faster. and have a lot more direction and a bit more guidance on exactly what you need to do to make the most out of the limited time that we all have, then that is exactly what one-to-one coaching is for, and you will see the link in the show notes. So you can pop me a message on WhatsApp there if you want to ask any questions about coaching or just inquire a little bit farther, just pop me a message saying coaching or just ask anything that pops to mind. Otherwise, speak soon, I'll catch you later.