What can cardio do for you?

For people who want to lose weight, cardio training has to be part of the plan. Cardio is not something new or foreign, it is any activity like jogging, cycling, walking, aerobics and the like that gets your heart pumping and causing you to sweat. Basically cardio is any activity that you can embark on that elevates your heart rate.

What do you get out of cardio training?

• Cardio training will give your body energy. When you do cardio training, it might be hard at first and you will be out of breath, but with regular training, you will experience higher energy levels and endurance.

• Cardio helps prevent diseases. These include diabetes, high cholesterol and certain cancers. It also strengthens your heart and lungs, which translates to adding more years to your life.

• Cardio helps in maintaining weight. It is great for people wanting to lose weight because it burns calories, and it is also great for people who want to maintain their weight. For people with fat in some areas of their bodies that they want to get rid of, cardio is the best way to start melting those fats away.

• Not only will cardio burn fats and help you lose weight, it will increase your metabolism. This is great because you can still burn fat long after you are finished with your exercise.

• Doing cardio can help you build your muscles. Yes, it might not be as effective as strength training but it involves muscle groups that are being worked out.

As great as cardio is to people who want to lose weight, eating healthy has to be part of the plan. Combining cardio with healthy eating will increase your chances of losing weight and getting the body you want.

Also, you need to do cardio exercises on a regular basis. For starters you can do cardio for at least 20 minutes, 3 to 5 days a week. As your body builds endurance and as you get fitter, increase the length of the cardio, as well as the intensity. Make sure your body does not get used to the cardio as it will get less responsive to it. I would recommend different intensity levels and different time frames for each cardio workout that you are going to do.

Here is an example of this:

Warm up: 3 minutes of walking

Brisk/power walking or jogging: 30 minutes

Cool down: 5 minutes of walking

The 30 minutes can be broken down into mini intensity level exercises and you can alternate between brisk walking and jogging to create change in the workout. For instance, you can brisk walk for 3 minutes and then jog at a high speed for a minute, brisk walk for another 3 minutes and jog at high speed for 2 minutes and so forth.

You can also do different sets of combinations that can include cycling and aerobics just to mention a few. The important thing is to start on it as soon as you can (if you haven’t already), do it at least 3 -5 times a week, do the exercise for 30 to 60 minutes a session and eat healthily. Get your doctor to clear you if you are planning on embarking on an exercise program.

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