Are Cardio Work outs effective for weight loss?

What are cardio workouts?

Also called aerobic or endurance exercise, cardiovascular exercise is any form of activity that uses aerobic metabolism. That is, during the activity, oxygen is heavily involved in the cellular reactions that produce the energy necessary to sustain the activity. Your heart rate increases and you breathe more deeply to maximize the amount of oxygen in your body and help you to use more oxygen efficiently. Hence, you feel more energized and do not get tired quickly.

Cardiovascular exercise is any vigorous activity that increases heart rate and respiration and raises oxygen and blood flow throughout the body while using large muscle groups of the body repetitively and rhythmically. Such activity progressively challenges your most vital internal body organs and improves the function and performance of the heart, lungs and circulatory system. Cardio improves many aspects of health, including heart health, mental health, mood, sleep, weight regulation and metabolism.

For an exercise to be considered cardio, it must raise your heart rate and breathing rate into moderate to vigorous intensity level (at least 50-percent of the normal rate), for a minimum of 10 minutes. That is why activities undertaken to improve strength, such as resistance exercise, using weight machines, lifting weights and core workouts are not considered as cardio because they do not raise the heart rate throughout the period of exercise.

Major categories of cardiovascular exercise

Cardiovascular exercises can be classified into three categories, high-impact, low-impact and no-impact cardio.

High-impact cardio

Any cardiovascular activity that involves having both your feet off the ground at some point during the activity is called high-impact cardio. It is also called a weight-bearing exercise because you are supporting your own body weight with your limbs against the force of gravity. Examples include jumping rope, high-impact aerobic dance and certain forms of advanced strength training.

Low-impact cardio

Any cardiovascular activity during which one foot remains on the ground at all times. Examples include walking, hiking, and low-impact aerobic dance.

No-impact cardio

When cardiovascular exercise is performed in water, the activity is classified as no-impact because being immersed in water reduces the pull of gravity on the body. So swimming and water aerobics are no-impact cardio exercises because the tyres and frame of the bike support most of the body weight. No-impact cardio such as cycling and aquatic exercise are ideal if you have arthritic condition or are undergoing injury rehabilitation as they eliminate most of the jarring and pounding associated with land based cardio activity.

Examples of cardiovascular exercises are:

• Running

• Swimming

• Cycling/bicycling

• Jogging

• Brisk Walking

• Jumping rope

• Stair climbing

• Martial arts

• Burpees

• Bear crawls

• Water aerobics

• Dancing

• Cross-country skiing

• Mountain climbing

• High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT)

How do cardio exercises help lose weight?

Increase Metabolism

All types of cardio increases metabolism through the production of Fibroblast Growth Factor 21 (FGF21) hormone, which increases the body's metabolism, suppresses appetite and causes more calories to be burned.

Burn excess calories and fats

By increasing the heart rate into the target heart rate zone, which is the zone where the body burns the most calories, cardio helps to burn excess calories and control weight.

Exercises such as walking, swimming, running and jogging burn excess calories over time while moderate to high intensity cardio burn quite a lot of calories per exercise session.

Examples of cardio exercises that are highly effective in cutting weight include jumping rope, running stairs, walking, rowing, cycling and high intensity interval training (HIIT).

Improves mood and energy

Cardiovascular exercise triggers increased secretion of endorphins-neurochemicals that cause increased production of mood-boosting hormones such as dopamine, serotine and norepinephrine. With improved mood, you feel more energized and ready to complete your routine activities . But the increased release of hormones also reduces stress which may cause emotional eating, boosts stamina, increases energy and improves memory and mental focus.

To answer the big question, yes, cardio workouts are very effective for losing weight. They burn excess fats and calories, even tone your body and help you achieve a healthy Body Mass Index.

One important thing to note is that the excess fats and calories burnt are replaced with muscle in other words you gain muscle and it's going to appear as if you are gaining weight. Keep in mind that muscle is actually heavier than fat; this is where all the misconception is with cardio exercises.!

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