Cardio for Weightloss

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy weightlifting, free weights or weight machines. If you're going to do heavy lifting, I would suggest a nice 30 minute warm up. My choice would be the bicycle, treadmill, or jumping rope. And stretch between switching exercises, especially when you're doing arms.

But when it comes to weight-loss, it's cardio all the way for me. I gain mass too easily to start out with weights. Even now, my biceps are gigantic just from carrying around a small child occasionally.

So, when I started going to the gym after years of being out of shape, I started out on the elliptical. Mainly because I'm overweight, and it's low impact and easier on the joints, while still good for building up muscle and endurance.

A light stretch before exercising is always good practice. And then a more involved stretch after your workout is excellent for increasing mobility and flexibility, since you'll be warmed up and able to stretch more efficiently. I use a stretching chair at our gym, plus additional stretches for the calves and quadriceps.

My goal currently is to build up strength and endurance. Either of these can be achieved by exercising longer or exercising harder, or doing both. Although, a person new to exercising, probably shouldn't do one type of cardio machine for longer than an hour because it invites injury through repetitive motion. Even less time should be spent on one exercise if it's high impact and you're doing it on a daily basis.

It takes time to build up a good muscle base that can take the longer and harder workouts. I actually hurt myself during a hour long run. Just pushed too hard. Ended up straining a calf muscle, which I stupidly continued trying to run on for a couple of weeks.

I took last week off from running and started using the foam roller to try to work out the cramp. The stair stepper and rowing machine have been dear friends during this period, but I still miss running terribly. The burn in the lungs is something else. Hyper dance aerobics with lots of jumping and kicks doesn't really come close. Although, combining kickboxing and burpees almost gets me there.

I think part of my problem is the amount of weight I'm carrying around on my frame. It's too much for how hard I like to exercise. I've been researching intermittent fasting and alternate day fasting. My husband and I normally do a long fast in the spring. But supposedly intermittent/alternate fasting doesn't contribute to muscle loss, the same way straight fasting can.