Any tool, if used properly, can make amazing things.
The same tool can also smash your thumb to pieces.
A few days ago, a lovely soul DM’ed asking for advice. They have diligently been riding their Peleton for the past five months… yet when they looked in the mirror, they look “worse”. The scale is going down yet, they looked (their words) fatter.
What is going on??
A few things.
They are seeing things that aren’t there.
Look at the instructors. Do you see any that look like most Americans? Have you seen one with a roll of chub when they sit down or arms that move when they waive?
Nope.
You are spending your sacred time;
because that is what movement is once you get out of your own way,
gazing at perfect chiseled bodies. Bodies that have been crafted by years of work in the GYM- not on the bike. Because you have been lied to. Believing these men and women look the way they look because of a bike is like believing a Rodan and Fields before and after. Those folks are full of filler and Botox… wrinkle cream my ass.
These instructors who appear to be made from muscle and good hair earned those bodies with great genetics, and weightlifting. No spin bike, even ones equipped with 3-pound dumbbells, helped someone achieve those chiseled arms. Weights did that.
This isn’t a post about Peleton though, rather the abuse of Cardio. From a former cardio queen who wasted YEARS of her life sweating in the quest to become smaller.
And, before you come at me, I think the concept AND classes are amazing. I’ve taken some and every time I feel like I am being evangelized in a good way. Those instructors have one liners and motivation for days, it’s empowering and fun!
But as the only means of fitness, Cardio, in ANY form, is a hammer.
A hammer can build a whole ass house, but with only a hammer you aren’t getting shit done. You NEED additional tools.
Folks are riding/running/cardio-ing themselves into a possible whole host of problems. Do not wreak yourself in 2021 by being a slave to cardio.
Excess cortisol (a stress hormone) can be caused by too much cardio. To much cortisol does nasty things to us from weakening our immune systems, raising ours appetites' and cravings, causes mood swings, makes you weaker (no ones goal) and makes it HARDER to lose weight. Yikes.
When you exercise you burn both fat and muscle, ideally the muscle lost is minimum AND if you are doing strength training you are breaking down those muscle fibers which in turn causes them to repair and build back stronger.
However, during cardio this does not happen. You are not “repairing” from steady state cardio (yes- everything you are doing on a Peleton aside from a 15-minute HITT class IS STEADY STATE) you are simply burning muscle.
I don’t say that to scare you. I LOVE steady state cardio, and it is not a bad thing. But steady state 5 days a week is a different story. Too much of a good thing is never a good thing.
Doing an excess of it is asking
to burn your muscle away. Muscle is your metabolic powerhouse. It takes EFFORT to build, do not let that effort go to waste doing excessive Cardio.
To be clear; anyone who loses any amount of weight will sacrifice muscle mass along with it. However, to beat the horse, the more cardio you do the more muscle you are losing. This is another thing I have seen firsthand to many times.
Folks come into my office thrilled with their 10-pound weight loss only to hop on the Inbody (a scale the reads muscle mass along with fat mass) and see that while they did lose 3 pounds of fat they also lost 3 pounds of muscle and some water weight. What does this mean?
It means they are burning LESS calories than before and must do more
cardio to keep up their weight where they want it.
It also means to maintain that weight loss they need to keep the cardio up and consumed calories limited. Loss of muscles means a slower metabolism as their Basal Metabolic Rate decreases as their muscle mass goes down. Not good! This is why strength training is so important for overall health and longevity! (!!!)
While we are on the subject of weight, it is worth saying you should never (ever ever ever) us a home scale as a means to judge your progress. If you see a big drop in weight it is water, granted that is excess inflammation and bloat so great that it is gone, but it is not fat.
If you continue to see a large drop in weight you need to calm your tots, eat a carb and chill with the cardio- because that is fat AND muscle. Lowering your metabolic rate, making it hard on your future self to maintain your weight and probably messing up your hormones too. Good times.
It is never ending cycle you put yourself in.
Another side effect of too much cardio: a shitty night’s sleep. If you find you are having a hard time falling asleep OR waking up every night around 3am that is a solid sign to much cardio is happening. Take a few days off. Sleep is EVERYTHING. Do not let your sleep quality decline in the name of burning some calories, that will bite you in the ass.
Please, take it from a former cardio queen. Too much cardio is going to harm you.
A new year is coming in HOT, and with it a ton of people with fitness related goals.
Get the bike!
But get some weights too. Make sure in your quest to reach your goals you are not making it harder on yourself by burning your muscle away.
Lift weights. It will change you.
Make sure those weights challenge you. Heavy is relative. When I started lifted 8 pounds was heavy and a challenge. BUT, it changed, and eventually I needed more weight to challenge me.
Get your ass back to the gym so those heavier weights are available to you!
A shark only grows as big as the tank you put it in. Put yourself in a big tank. Not your basement and the dusty 10 pounders that have been sitting in the corner.
Challenge yourself on what your heavy is, really really cool things happen when you lean into that.
I fell deep in the hole that was cardio for years. Going and going aiming to shrink myself away. Sweat is fat crying and all that other bullshit disconnected trainers will tell you….
Now cardio is religious, a moving meditation I truly cherish, but it took years to get here. And it didn’t happen from 5 days a week on a bike/elliptical/ treadmill.
It happened with aiming to grow and aiming to challenge. To become more, not sweat away to less and less.
We shrunk enough in 2020. Cutting the fat of our lives to and focusing on what matters to us. Let 2021 be the year we aim to grow.
Cardio will always have my heart, but cardio alone is a recipe for metabolic disaster.
Support yourself in 2021 by making sure you have a FEW tools in your tool belt.