Red Deer Life - February 5, 2006

With all the nice weather we have been having it's been a wonderful opportunity to continue with an active lifestyle outdoors. Evenings walks with the family pet or the daily run have been met with few pitfalls in this unusually mild winter. On one of these recent evenings I was out for a light run with my faithful companion Teddy, the family Bichon Shitzu. I started to think about what to write about this week and what came to mind were all the questions I've been asked over the years about cardio. When it comes to cardio there seems to be many differing ideas and opinions, so let's try to share with you some of my guidelines.

Cardio is for everyone young or old, gaining weight, or losing weight.

If you are in the process of trying to add weight and particularly new muscle tissue cardio can play an important role. By stimulating metabolic rate you increase appetite to fuel the growth of new tissue. Regular cardio leads to advanced capillary development for the delivery of precious oxygen and nutrients to those hard working muscles. The better this system works the faster you can grow. In addition higher intensity cardio is very important for a healthy heart.

Now when you're trying to lose body fat and inches cardio may become the single most important thing AFTER a properly balanced nutrition plan. Think of cardio as that secret insurance policy for successful weight loss. Each time we exercise with an elevated heart rate for a sustained duration of 20 minutes or more we've put our body into metabolic overdrive. For the next few hours our body operates at a much higher metabolic rate, burning more calories and body fat. Think about it cardio exercise into the evening can yield a metabolic rate increase sufficient enough that you may go to bed burning fat while you sleep. The catch with this faster metabolism is that it only lasts a few hours so we need to engage in cardio activity frequently. This is where I see many people go wrong. Cardio activity 3-4 days a week generally won't cut it for continual weight loss. Cardio is most effective when it's almost every day. So 5-7 days a week is my general recommendation for cardio activity. A word of caution when it comes to cardio, don't count calories. Often we use too much logic thinking that if I burn X number of calories during activity that should equal Y amount of fat loss. Though it makes perfect sense on paper it rarely works out this way. Energy expenditure is not the only variable in the equation when it comes to reliving the body of some of its emergency energy source.

Another important aspect of cardio activity is heart rate. You will read many differing approaches to which "zone" is the best to be in. After years of preaching to my clients even I have come to realize that it's not as critical to remain in a certain zone as it is to ensure the adequate frequency mentioned above. I will however recommend that you try to remain at least 60% of your maximum heart rate or comfortably above. (60% Maximum heart rate = (220-age) X 0.6) The heart health benefits of being above 60% maximum heart rate are many and really what we are always looking for; is balance. Enjoy the nice weather.