You want to lose body fat.
So you add another run, another spin class, another HIIT session.
You start watching the calorie number on your watch like it’s a scoreboard.
Surely more exercise = more fat loss? Not necessarily.
Cardio is brilliant for cardiovascular health, fitness and endurance. We absolutely aren’t anti-cardio at LOKfit. But if your goal is to change your body composition, simply doing more and more of it isn’t always the answer.
Cardio and Strength Training Have Different Jobs
This is something we want every Member to understand.
If you want to improve your cardiovascular fitness, cardio is an excellent tool. If you want to build and preserve muscle, you need resistance training.
And if you want to reduce body fat, your nutrition needs to create an appropriate energy deficit over time.
Yes, there’s crossover. But expecting cardio to do all three jobs can leave you working incredibly hard without getting the result you actually want.
More Exercise Doesn’t Automatically Mean Better Results
There’s another piece of the puzzle: recovery.
If you’re strength training, doing several cardio sessions, hitting 10,000+ steps, working, parenting, sleeping badly and trying to eat as little as possible… More exercise might not be what your body needs.
Your body has to recover from training in order to adapt to it. So rather than asking:
“What else can I add?”
Sometimes the better question is: “What am I actually trying to achieve?”
At LOKfit, we don’t want you exercising simply to burn as many calories as possible. We want every part of your programme to have a purpose. Lift to become stronger and build or preserve muscle. Use cardio to support cardiovascular health and fitness. Walk because everyday movement matters. And if fat loss is the goal, make nutrition the priority as opposed to part of the strategy.
Don’t just do more. Do what matters.