The Problem With Cardio

Jonny Bowden, author, nutritionist and weight loss coach cuts through all the misconceptions about diet and fitness to help you transform your body, your health and your life.

We all know cardio training is great for the heart. But for weight loss? Maybe not so much.

As my friend Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS says, "Cardio exercise is such a strange thing. In theory, it should work perfectly well for all men and women, but as anyone who has tried it knows, the practicality of it just doesn't add up." A recent study in the "International Journal of Obesity" illustrates the point perfectly.

Researchers had people exercise five times a week for three months. The average weight loss was a respectable 8.2 pounds. So far, so good. But when the researchers looked at the actual individuals in the study, a different picture emerged.

The best subject lost an amazing 32 pounds! The worst one gained almost four. The individual variance was enormous. In other words, it was good for some people and not good for others. And researchers think they know why. They classified the exercisers into two groups they named "Compensators" and "Non-Compensators." The compensators got hungry as a result of their exercise and consumed a whopping 268 additional calories a day, thereby basically wiping out their exercise efforts at least as far as weight loss was concerned. The compensators -- not surprisingly -- lost the least amount of weight.

"If your cardio program is not working for you, check your appetite and calorie intake to see if you are 'compensating' for your efforts," suggests Ballantyne. And if you are, you might be better off with a high-intensity interval program.