Good morning, fam. Any spring break plans? I’ve got no break (sadly), but my breaks every day involve walking the streets and seeing more and more blooms every day. I know it’s cliche to talk about the weather, but how can we not right now?! 🌤️ 

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Stop doing cardio for fat loss!

Okay, so it’s a bit of a clickbaity title. But it gets the point across. Too many people are chasing the goal of fat loss with less-than-ideal methods.

It’s like racing a Ferrari with a VW bug. You might eventually cross the finish line, but you won’t get there the fastest.

It’s like hammering a nail with a screwdriver. It can eventually, somehow, get the job done. But it’s not the ideal tool for the task. 

Or perhaps it’s like trying to wrap a Christmas present with tape but no scissors. You can tear your way through the paper and make it happen, but if you’re not using all the essential tools available to you, it’s going to be a struggle.

The low hanging fruit

So what’s the lowest hanging fruit when it comes to fat loss? What are the biggest “levers” we can pull in our lifestyle to produce the greatest change with the least effort?

If your goal (or one of your goals) is changing body composition, cardiovascular exercise is just one of many levers you can pull to progress toward this change. But it’s far from the only one, and not the most powerful.

However, our culture has somehow made the message stick that if you want to “lose weight,” you need to do endless hours of cardio.

Where does that leave most people? Exhausted, hungrier than before, and often frustrated with results. When people are just doing cardio to lose weight, but if they’re not eating lots of protein and resistance training, they often tend to lose just as much muscle as fat. So if they do manage to lose weight with just this method, they usually stay the same general shape, but just shrunken down a bit. None of the “toning” (I have beef with this word) that we actually want. 

I won’t bury the lede any further. While cardio is an effective tool for fat loss, it is not the best for making changes in body composition. 

Pulling the levers

The other two major levers we can pull are healthy dietary changes and resistance training.

First off, why is cardio by itself usually not enough?

When people say they want to “lose weight,” they usually mean they want to look different in some way. Fitter, more “toned,” better fitted into clothes, etc. It’s not only the presence of fat that causes all-too-common dissatisfaction with body image. It’s also a lack of muscle.

While going from zero to any activity likely will help you build a bit of muscle, cardiovascular exercise really doesn’t do much in the way of muscle building. 

• As a caveat, cardio training has numerous health benefits. We should all be doing it for myriad reasons! But this article is about why it shouldn’t be our only or even primary tool for fat loss. 

Cardio can help us lose some fat. But only if we’re in a caloric deficit—i.e. we’re burning more energy than we’re consuming. Cardio increases the energy expenditure side of the equation. But if it also increases our appetite—or if we adopt the “I deserve the treat!” mentality—we can easily consume back the few hundred calories we burned during exercise, completely negating the caloric deficit we almost attained. 

And here’s the thing: it’s honestly not that great for burning calories, anyway.

• For example, I’m a large human (6+ feet tall, 200+ pounds), and when doing cardio, I burn around 100 calories per mile traveled. Whether walking or running, that’s usually about what it comes out to. Think about that.

• Five miles (which equates to about 10,000 steps) of walking/jogging would just burn about 500-600 calories for me.

You know what else is 500 calories? Like half my lunch. A few teaspoons of peanut butter. A hearty serving of ice cream. The beef patty alone on a burger. 

My point is, it’s muuuuch easier to not eat X amount of calories than it is to burn that same amount via exercise. The time, the effort, the energy it takes… it’s not even close.

Thus, we can much more easily pull the dietary lever of not eating a certain amount of calories every day, and it’s probably easier than attempting to burn that through exercise every day. (Not to mention that it’s nearly impossible to sustain unbroken daily exercise for a long period of time. We need rest!)

Diet is probably the biggest lever we can pull for fat loss. Studies have shown that when people’s diets are primarily ultraprocessed foods (as the standard American diet is), they consume about 500 more calories per day. Just imagine simply switching to a primarily whole foods-based diet, where ultraprocessed foods are the occasional treat, not the norm, and naturally reducing your intake by about 500 calories per day.

Because a pound of stored fat contains about 3,500 calories, this could theoretically lead to you losing a pound of fat per week! (Numerous factors go into this equation, so it’s not always that straightforward, but in theory, the math works.)

See the charts below. For basically everyone except those doing hours of exercise every day, the vast majority of the calories we burn every day come from our basal metabolic rate. That’s what we burn just to exist, sitting around, keeping our body alive and organ systems functioning. It’s a lot! After that, it’s mostly NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) that burns the next biggest chunk. That’s our regular daily activity that is movement but doesn’t count as exercise. We actually burn about 10% of our calories from digesting food (thermic effect of food). And the remainder is whatever comes from exercise. For some people, that’s 0%. For others, it’s 10, maybe 20%, but it’s rarely over that. 

This segues into the next greatest lever we can pull: resistance training. And for two reasons:

1. It increases our basal metabolic rate/resting energy expenditure

2. It improves our body composition by adding muscle where we want it. 

While the increase in our metabolic rate may just be 10–50 calories per day per pound of muscle (there’s some debate around this), that adds up, especially if you can add ~10 pounds of muscle over the course of a year or so. 

And as far as shaping our bodies, trust me, muscle is what you want. Rarely has adding muscle ever made someone look worse. For people who fear getting “bulky,” it takes a LOT of work to get to that point. And if you do eventually see it happening, you can simply dial it back or work on losing some of the fat you might’ve added on.

For 99% of people, adding muscle to your frame will shape your body better, make you fit in clothes better, and give you the more aesthetic look you’re hoping for. 

The recipe for success

So look. If you want to lose weight, I know cardio is tempting. If it brings you enjoyment, do it! If you aren’t doing any at all right now, do it for the numerous other benefits for your health and longevity! But please don’t let it be your only tool for weight management. There are larger—and arguably more impactful—levers you can pull to achieve your goal body composition.

If you really want to improve your body composition and the way you look (there is NO shame in caring about that!), employ all of the following, and possibly more:

1. Healthy dietary practices, prioritizing high protein with some restriction around ultraprocessed and/or calorie-dense foods.

2. Resistance train 2–3+ times per week to build muscle and boost your metabolism.

3. Incorporate regular cardiovascular exercise at least a few days per week.

4. Build more movement (NEAT) into your day by just living a more active life.

5. Prioritize good quantity and quality of sleep, and manage other lifestyle variables like stress, recovery, relationships, purpose, etc. 

When combined, this holistic approach is far superior to any one action alone. You can’t bake a cake with only one ingredient. So why try to lose weight with only one? 

Following the five steps above is a much more complete recipe for success. And your victory will be much sweeter than a cake that’s missing ingredients. 🍰 

✅ Take Action

Every newsletter's Take Action section will invite you to take small steps to improve your health. Recognizing that we all have different capabilities, I'll offer three different levels of action you can choose to take.

Level 1: If your life is very sedentary in general, don’t worry about intimidating cardio sessions. Set a step goal! Get more movement throughout your day, every day.

Level 2: Stuck doing endless cardio with lackluster results? Focus more on diet and lifting weights.

Level 3: Feel like you’re doing it all right but hit a plateau? Hit me up. I’m getting into health coaching. Let’s work through it 👀 

This newsletter is brought to you by… me!

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✍️ Drew's Picks:

• Listen: This episode of The Doctor’s Farmacy did not disappoint. JJ Virgin is a highly experienced and trusted voice. There wasn’t much I disagreed with, and anyone should find her advice and mythbusting helpful!

• That’s all I’ve got for this week :)

Hope you enjoyed today’s newsletter. I’d love to hear from you! What are your thoughts? What’s your experience in this arena? The more I hear from you, the better this newsletter can be tailored to my audience!

Keep moving,

Drew

The content in Move to Improve is meant to be informative in nature, but it should not be taken as medical advice. It is always a good idea to consult with a trusted health professional before making any major lifestyle changes that could have a significant impact on your health. This is not a medical resource, and any opinions and articles are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. They are not substitutes for consulting a qualified medical professional. Please think critically and take what I say with a grain of salt (aka don’t sue me).