If you’re looking to shed body fat, there’s simply no getting around the fact that you absolutely must create some sort of caloric deficit.
Any way you look at it, you MUST burn more calories than you consume.
Now, it can get quite a bit more complicated than simple math would have us believe, but the fact remains–a deficit must be in place for fat loss to occur.
But, there are many different ways to create a deficit, some more effective than others.
For example, if you’d like to create an additional 300 calorie deficit per day, you could simply skip your morning bagel (approx 300 calories). Fairly simple to do, unless you have some weird affinity toward bagels like I do.
OR, you could walk for an HOUR on the treadmill and create the same 300 calorie deficit.
OR, you could do a 10 minute high intensity interval training workout and create the same 300 calorie deficit.
And here’s where things get a little more complicated than the numbers suggest.
In all three instances, you are essentially creating an additional 300 calorie deficit each day. BUT, scenario 1 sucks, scenario 2 really sucks, and scenario 3 trumps them all–bigtime.
Why?
Well, first, let’s say that you decide to create your caloric deficit soley by eliminating calories in your diet. By now, if you’ve been a follower of anything I’ve taught, you know that this will only result in some nasty hormonal consequences, leading to slowed metabolism and your body more or less canceling out the very deficit you are trying to create.
As far as scenario #2 goes, there are several issues. First, 60 friggin’ minutes to burn 300 calories??? That’s a LONG time to invest to burn less than a tenth of a single pound of fat (assuming that all calories burned are from fat, which they won’t be). At that rate, if you wanted to burn a pound of fat, you’d have to walk for close to 15 hours.
Wow.
Count. Me. Out.
The second problem with scenario #2 is that there is virtually no “afterburn” effect, so once the session is over, so is your calorie burn–metabolism goes right on back to it’s slow ways.
Now, with the third scenario, you’re investing much, much less time, but have the added benefit of the “afterburn” or elevated metabolism for the entire day (and sometimes even into the next day).
Which brings me to the question — how are you burning your calories?
Are you trying to “diet” the pounds away? Are you hoping to walk away 5, 10, or even 20 lbs — that will probably take you a few years (of walking). Or have you embraced the power of intense exercise?
In tomorrow’s post, I’m going to share with you 3 different scenarios (different from those I shared today), and in that post we’ll dig a little deeper into diet vs. exercise for fat loss and the REAL factor in determining fat loss (hint: it’s not calories in, calories out).
Comments welcome…
Talk to you below!
Joel
P.S. In the meantime, want another EASY way to burn 8 lbs of fat without doing ANYTHING? My buddy Jon Benson just posted a really cool tip here:
==> How to burn 8 lbs of fat without doing ANYTHING (30 second tip)
Keep rockin!
Joel
HIIT Jump Rope is my go to. I’ve been getting into some interval stuff with kettlebells over the past year, but I always go back to my jump rope.
Of course, my weight training workouts are pretty fast-paced and burn a lot of calories–as you well know, Mr. Marion.
Three days a week of high intensity kettlebell trianing (MRT), one day a week intense uphill hiking, are my intense workouts. I also do 2 long easy swims (1600m), and one long hike, as this keeps me ready for summer activities that I enjoy. I know the latter two are not optimal, but i enjoy hiking and ocean swims, and it is something i share with wife and friends (2 and 4 legged). I also do FMA workouts for pleasure and coordination fitness….oh and of course to make me an invincible self-defense leviathan.
Steady state cardio does not suck. There are two flaws with HIIT or afterburns:
1. High Intensity Cardio eat away your recovery ability.
2. Most of the time when people do High Intensity Cardio, they overestimate themselves and many people overestimate and over-hyped the afterburn affects.
Let’s just say 45 minutes of easy walking equals to 10 minutes of absoulte high intensity. If you train weights 3 or 4 days a week and if you are natural, will you be able to do 45 minutes of easy walking 5 days per week or 10 minutes of absoulte high intensity 5 days per week for more than 8 weeks ?
Even though afterburn affect is great, it does not gave the same calorie burning affect as most people thought it did. And it is really hard to prove it.
@Joel Marion – I wear a heart rate monitor and 10 minutes of 20 sec on/off burns about 150 calories and that is really pushing it.
hey, joel, short, sweet and intense is the answer!! i preach to so many people at the gym to trade their monotonous, ineffective hour plus workouts on the treadmill for the short interval training but only a few listen. it’s common sense that if you do something for months without results it’s time to change it!!!!
I may enjoy walking to the places I need to go, but a whole 20 miles to burn a pound of fat. I think I’ll leave it.
Hey Joel,
I teach martial arts, and I like to use a combination of different bodyweight exercises with wind sprints in between each set.
eg. sprint to the end of the gym and back, do 10 burpees. 4x
repeat with push-ups, core exercises, dips, etc.
I’m seeing great results in myself and my students with that routine, but i think they’re getting too adapted to that sequence and need to come up with a new routine to mix it up a little.
Started exercising again beginning of this year after burning out in summer 2008 (still working on cataloguing problems, solving is something else again).
I use Ryan Lee’s Bodybot internetprogram.Bodybot is 8 times 20 seconds intensive workout separeted by t imes 10 seconds rest. Noticed some weight loss and feeling better. Recovery time keeps going down afterwards so I’m thinking of adding a second set. With some combinations I have not yet been able to last the 20 seconds, particularly with 4 pushups and 2 sprints in place.
Thanks Joel!! Encouragement is appreciated. ;-)
I could never cut out food to make a deficit. I love food, and I’ve always had a high metabolism so I eat a TON of food (in high school I was eating around 4,000 calories/day). My metabolism has slowed down and I eat less than I used to, but when I want to get my body fat lower I don’t even think about cutting out food. Sometimes eating better food, but not cutting it out.
I love doing high intensity workouts and going for sprints. I sprint to the bank, which is about 1K away from my house when I need to go for a run and I make sure that when I get back I’m pretty much ready to collapse because I pushed myself really hard. I also get my cheques (or if you’re not in Canada “checks”) deposited so I get something useful done while burning off calories.
Shawn
I totally 100% agree with Joel. I have been an endurance athlete all my life, competing in long distance running and triathlon. My training consisted of 3-4 hours per day of cardio and only 1 light weights session a week (if I could fit it in). I was sooooo skinny, yet I was ‘soft’ and had very little muscle definition. A few months ago I turned 23 and I decided that I was sick of spending 4 hours a day doing monotonous training and looking like a stick insect. I now follow Vince Del Montes muscle building programme, have totally slashed my workout time for HIIT and intense weights sessions, and my body is now so lean and muscular and awsome!
Sure its nice to go for a walk in the hills or the countryside and this really helps fitness – but lets be honest does anyone actually enjoy walking/jogging on the treadmill for 90mins?!? Or swimming length after boring length in a swimming pool!?!
Thanks for all the advice Joel!
i burn my calories in soccer practice for 2 hours, on wed, and sat sunday 1 hour and mon i do interval for 30 minutes on a epilhiltical i do feel the afterburn tues full body weight lifting for about 40 minutes thurs. weight lifting for about 40 mintes, friday kenpo for 30 minutes.
Try cutting your carbs ALOT…. only have high carb POST workout- avoid fats after weight workout… ADD lots of protein and veggies to each meal… that will for sure do the trick!
~Tiffany
Personal Trainer and Nutrition Coach
@Clement –
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Hey, it’s Joel! So you want to know a little more about me, huh? Well, I’d be happy to oblige :-)
I guess it all started back in 2001 (my freshman year of college) when I was just a “skinny fat” 19-year old kid. At the time, I was spending close to 2 hours a day in the gym (now my workouts last about 30 minutes), and despite my efforts, you’d probably never guess I worked out a day in my life by looking at me...read more