Let's talk about cardiovascular exercise
How it can help us reach our fitness goals:
cardiovascular system:
Our heart and blood vessels job to deliver nutrients and oxygen to the tissues in our body.
Our system has already a function
How can we use cardio in fitness??
Movement is cardio: walking, sitting, standing, biking, running 🏃♀️ Now we have machines that push us to prolong this activities.
Calories in vs calories out...
The main reason why we add cardio is to expand/burn calories...
We try to expand calories because we have to eat to keep our body running smoothly;
Calories come in our body when we eat and to give that power for calories to be dissolve into our blood we move, so we need physical activity.
The process of our body delivering nutrients to the bones uses calories (our metabolism) and when the total equation of calories in and calories out is negative: meaning you used more calories than you ate; it’s called burning calories.
Should we do cardio??
Yes, if we are talking about movement, yes we should move.
How much??
Here’s where we make the choices that depends on our own lifestyle. Remember that we try to cope with our lifestyle not change it. When we first learn to cope, then we can change it (It's called gratitude). Only if we do not like it.
•what do you do at work?
•what do you eat; calories/macros?
•how does you overall day looks like?
•what type of training you do??
How much you sleep?
Your gender
Your age
(DON'T MAKE IT TO HARD)
...
Losing weight needs a negative calorie balance: expanding more calories than you eat:The weight will go from where it has to go.
Keep in mind that our body is only able to burn certain amount of calories per day, per week and per month. So even if we do more, instead of helping us burn more and if we do not eat enough, our body will get triggered faster.
It will get accustomed to our physical activity and will plateau. It will stop giving us results before we reach our fitness goals, then we will have to start from 0 ( not a big deal, you’ll burn calories by resting more 😉).
But again the goal is not to reach plateau to soon because triggering our body can also trigger our motivation (we have to keep balance). I know we want to go all in (at least I do) and you will, but it’s important to first let our body adapt.
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Gaining weight needs more calories and nutrients 👍
A lot of the times, even if we eat a lot by not having an active lifestyle or not getting enough nutrients makes calories get stocked in the wrong places (face and love handles) or they get wasted and leave without doing their function.
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Because eating is important,
Food gets our nutrients, if we don’t get our nutrients our body will get tired (depressed).
Yes, adding cardio in the long run can make you eat more if you don't eat enough and can help you dissolve what you are eating.
Don’t worry the body is smart
You will be alright...
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What about HIIT
-Yes, it helps you burn more calories because it keeps oxygen flowing for longer so nutrients are well disperse during the day (just like lifting weights). Regardless of how much we do, we will need to feed our body with enough calories to be able to burn those calories.
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It can be well suited in your lifestyle
If you lack of time to stay active during the day like for example; if you sit all day and only have 3-4 days to exercise; Lifting weights 2 days at week and on your other 2 days you can fit some cardio in.
What type? -The one you enjoy and helps you stay consistent (LOOK FORWARD)
Maybe you only have 10mins to exercise before work so you do something like jump rope before work..
There are ways cardio, steady or intense can benefit you..
AND can also hurt you..
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The overall goal in fitness is to make it a lifestyle and that is by building a fit mindset,
Learning ways to get results when time is limited or when life gets in the way.
If you read this,
You are in the right track..
Stay like that and keep working toward your goals
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