Hi There,
I have searched and searched, but I can't find it. Sometime in the last few days someone said that doing high intensity cardio causes cortisol secretion. It makes your body/brain think you are in a high stress situation (hunting food- being chased) and therefore you are better off doing low intensity/weight training. Whoever posted it, referenced a book (I think??) can you please post it here, or something. I am very interested in learning more about this theory.
Pretty please?
Thanks,
Cerridwen

There is a lot of buzz about this. Jim Karas did a special many months ago on this, you can search on him, or here is a link: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=3034686&page=1

You can do a search on "less cardio" on google and find a lot of info on this. My trainer told me this last year and it was difficult to get used to and my brain still isn't wrapped around it.

i've seen something about it, and I only read the beginner forum.

OTOH, I've never been much of one for exercise, so I have to take anything that tells me I don't need as much with a grain of salt. Way hard to imagine myself into the wrong category of fitness.

My own weight problems have never been the result of working out too hard.

Honestly, I don't see how cardio can be bad for you. Getting blood pumping through your veins and into your heart is good for your body. Plus, being more active is mentally rewarding.

My trainer told me that for weight loss, however, there is a way to exercise. You want to do short intervals of high intensity with a lot of low intensity training. The key is DON'T kill yourself on the highest setting for 20 minutes. You need to shock your body by playing with the machine (or your bodies) intensity. For example, if you are using an elliptical trainer, don't work out at 7 rpm's and on a 5 resistance for the full 20 minutes. Slow down / speed up your rpms and resistance every 3, 5, or 7 minutes.

I found that what I was doing was working myself out to the point of exhaustion by keeping a constant high pace. I wasn't getting the results I wanted and the trainer said that is why.

All I know is that I NEVER lost weight, even when I was running 50 - 90 miles per week, unless I changed the way I ate significantly, either to starvation or low-carb! Obviously, I chose low-carb!!!! Now I'm at a much better weight, much better body composition, and I don't spend hours exercising!

I'm not the one who mentioned that less cardio is better, but I do believe that to be true.

It's not that cardio's bad for you, it's just that it's way over-rated as a weight loss tool. It doesn't burn nearly as many calories as people think, and it stimulates hunger which could cause folks to consume more than they burn off.

Plus, the fat-burning effects of cardio stop as soon as you step off the treadmill. OTOH, the metabolism-boosting, high calorie and fat-burning effects of resistance training (and high intensity, not low intensity, OP) can last for hours or even days afterwards. Resistance training itself burns more calories than cardio, plus builds muscle which also burns more calories when at rest.

There's several good threads and links to articles in the beginners exercise forums. Look for the "myths" one in the sticky threads at the top.

I think you're thinking of an article Taubes wrote. But he didn't say that, that's just what everyone chooses to believe he said. He said exercise has many health benefits; weight loss just isn't one of them. I'll see if I can find it.

Later:
Looking at your question again, I think I may have jumped the gun. This probably isn't the article you're thinking of. It's the one I was thinking of, though. Scroll down to the third post:

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=349688

Google high intensity cardio cortisol and you'll get hundreds of hits on that effect.

Art DeVany has many posts on his blog on this.

http://www.arthurdevany.com/?cat=23

He has a catagory of blog posts called "Death By Exercise" that has a lot of info on how long term cardio is bad.

Personally I think any form of exercise is better than no exercise at all.

I was just curious about it, since I spent january of 2007 on Southbeach. I was absolutely resolute with it. I also spent 1hour a day on the treadmill. Since I get bored easily, I had to challenge myself. By the end of the month, I was running 5 miles in an hour, (and I was NOT in good shape at the beginning). This was about 100% more exercise then I had been doing before that. At the end of the month, I had lost 2 pounds. That was the continuation of a long spiral into more weight gain, as I figured "crap, if I can't lose weight doing this, I am NEVER going to lose weight". Then I finally figured out that Atkins had worked for me 10 years ago, so I was going to do it again. Now, after 1 month on Atkins, and some time on the treadmill (every 2-3 days or so for 30-40min), I have lost 21 pounds.
This whole idea just struck a chord with me...
Thanks for the feedback
Cerridwen

I remember reading somewhere that exercise, in itself, will not make you lose weight. It's a combination of exercise and diet with the latter being more relevant to the weight loss factor. Exercise will tone your body though which can give you the appearance of being thinner than you actually are. In fact, just today my neighbor had asked me how much more weight did I lose. When I told her I really hadn't lost any more weight....I just started exercising......she commented I looked 20 lbs. thinner than the last time I saw her.

It was a nice compliment...... .

Wow!

Really glad you posted this. Can't tell you how good it is to hear that exercising doesn't need to be a flat-out heavy-duty thing every single day.

I'm also kind of curious about the difference in eating plans too - was there a major difference in carb intake? Or just a slight one? How about calories?

Sorry for so many pesky questions, but I'm really impressed and very intrigued.

Congratulations on finding your own system that's obviously working very well for you

Sara

I see the weight melting off of all of the people doing tons of exercise on the biggest loser. They are doing combination of cardio and resisitance. I don't think you could convince the trainers or the participants that cardio does not help with weight loss.

Piano

Taubes' point is that intense exercise makes you hungrier and you consequently eat more. On big loser they have severely limited diets -- they aren't eating more to compensate for the exercise.