burning fat and cardio

Any trainer that tells you one way or another is speaking without any evidence to support the claim either way. There is no solid research which points to any order of exercise, in terms of weight training or cardio first, that causes for "fat" loss than the other. The next person who says that. please ask for conclusive peer reviewd research which reaches that conclusion. They will not find any!!!!! PERIOD!!!! On the other hand if you have performance related goals, exercise order certainly does make a difference. If your goal is maximizing your squat strength, it would make no sense to do 30-60 minutes of cardio prior to resistance training your legs. On the issue of of bioelectrical impedance (BIA), this is quite accurate. Your body fat percentage is within healthy limits for a woman and that is most important. Your BMI may not truely represent your health relative to your body weight if you have been weight training quite a bit. BMI has nothing to do with body fat percentage, it is simply a height to body weight ratio. If you carry a more than average amount of muscle tissue, which is a good thing, this of course makes your BMI go up. What you are doing now sounds reasonable and sound. You should not focus on the scale and rather look at your body fat percentage and how your clothes are fitting. Keep it up!

Is there a certain point where if you exercise anymore you are just waisting your time? Is there a point where if you don't refuel that you start eating muscle within the same work out? My trainer has me do 15-20 minutes of cardio to warm up, then we do an hour of weight training, and then after he says do atleast 45 minutes of cardio (I try for 60 minutes 4-5 miles plus about 10 min cool down). So on Tues/Thur/Sat I do 2 - 2 1/2 hours in the gym. I usually have an apple or yogurt w/ half a scoop of protein powder before my work out and a 30+g protein shake within an hour after my work out. Do I need more fuel/carbs during my work out or should I do less cardio after my lifting time? I work out 6-7 days a week, the other days I do 70 min of just cardio. The past two weeks I have been running the Cooper River Bridge which is 5 miles round trip in under an hour. ( Killer incline/decline!) Some days I do the Bridge in the morning and the evening. Is it too much? My calories in are between 1600-2000. Do I need more? I'd like to lose 10 more pounds, if not its okay but seems it should be budging and it's not. Michelle

I also do cardio before and after a training. I feed before and after a *total* workout the idea of going back to the cardio after the weight training is argued by many, but the subscribing school of thought is burning through the glycogens and into the fat stores (really depending on how much cardio you do at the end or your session,

tell me if my thinking is correct. If you are in "fat burning" mode when exercising, it may burn fat calories, but if you eat more than your body needs it will still store back in your fat cells, no matter where the calories come from. I simply cannot exercise with out eating something first, I tire out too fast and I get the shakes about halfway into a normal workout. I usually have some thing like a yogurt with a liitle high fiber cereal, or a banana with some peanut butter about an hour before I eat. My weight is stable and I would like to build a little more muscle, not to body builder proportions, but healthy toned womanly proportions. i do work out, lift weight and getting nice definitionin my arms, but my abs are in hiding, LOL I want to build my butt muscles a little more. will the leg press help with that??? lunges can be problematic becaude they make my hip hurt. (torn cartilege) but can leg press 120 , 3 sets of 12, and can do 140 for maybe 6. tried 160 but could only do 1 or 2. it does not cause pain.

Correct. I too also eat something before a *total* work-out, and after. With that being said on mornings I do just cardio (usually first thing) I take in only a protein shake.

Unfortunately, just as you burn a higher percentage of calories from cardio when you are in a fasted state, you also mobilize a higher percentage of muscle protein. This is a bad thing and counterproductive to losing fat mass, as you know an increase in lean tissue also increases ones metabolic rate.

34 days later and you are still obsessed with my posts. Thanks.

I simply had some other members asking me about this particular topic so it was fresh on my mind. I remebered this series of posts and thought I would further share some relative information with you. This is a good topic and I am happy you started this thread....I don't quite understand why you are so defensive about me sharing information with you. No obsessing, just good info to know.