Active Low-Carber Forums - View Single Post - Short bursts in gym ‘key’ to weight loss

Quote:

Originally Posted by E.W.

I started doing this 2 weeks ago that is 2 or 3 days with about 5 to 10 min. to warm up and then a couple of 20 sec. sprints. I seem to be getting more out of this than walking 30 min. 4 or 5 days a week. That is my mood has picked up some and I have cut down my eating just a little bit. As was commented it seems that the key to this is putting the mitrochondria under stress which reminds me of another study. In that study the subjects took about 1000mg of vitamin C and 400mg of vitamin E. and the control group didn't take the vitamins. When both groups did a few weeks of aerobic exercise the group that took the vitamins did not improve there insulin sensitivity. I do wonder if you would get much more out of doing these short HIIT sessions 5 or 6 days a week or if it's best to just do them twice a week.

I remember reading that the HIIT sparked a metabolic response that lasted a couple of days, and I don't think you are supposed to do HIIT type cardio 5 or 6 times a week. Right now I've cut down to 3, and I think it's working well. More cardio is not necessarily better. I am guilty of over-doing cardio in the past, and once I read "as you adapt, you can go longer and longer, first 15 minutes, then 30, then an hour, then that gets easy. So what is your goal? To do cardio all day?". This really made sense to me, and I also read some things about experiments done by a Japanese expert, I think it was, and they really documented the success of short HIIT bursts within a shorter period of cardio and only a couple of times a week. I'll see if I can find it, I haven't read it in a long time. But it all made sense and I loved the logic and science behind it, so much as I worried about "not doing enough", I think everything is better or at least just as good doing far less. I'm not exhausting myself like before, I'm not burning out, and I'm losing weight better.