Cardio: How do I know what to choose?

March 25, 2014

I have such a hate and love relationship with cardio (cardiovascular exercise). I know I need it, as cardio has a range of health benefits and makes me feel happier and more energized in the long term. Although cardio should not be abused – too MUCH cardio can stress your body out and can actually cause your weight loss to stop – I personally like to do cardio a few times a week (plus I have to do it a certain amount of times a week since I am following the Kayla Itsine’s Bikini Body Guide).

Cardio Types

An important distinction to make with cardio, is what type of cardio you are doing. There are essentially two types of cardio: HIIT (high intensity interval training) and LISS (low intensity steady state).

HIIT Training

HIIT training involves periods of alternating intense exercise (sprints for example) with periods of recovery (a walk or a slow jog for example). HIIT training allows you to exercise at a higher intensity for longer periods of time than steady state exercise would.

LISS Training

LISS training involves long periods of low intensity exercise which can include activities like walking. You stay at this pace throughout the whole workout and maintain the same level of intensity.

What are the differences between HIIT and LISS training?

HIIT and LISS training both offer benefits and is still a widely discussed topic in the world of health and fitness. Which is better? Should we just do HIIT, LISS, or a combination of both?

Well, HIIT and LISS training are two different types of training, so it depends on what you like to do and what your goals are. I personally prefer a mixture – LISS training lets me catch up on social media and watch youtube videos on my phone (lol), whereas HIIT training is done in a fairly short amount of time. Both leave me dripping in sweat and making me feel accomplished.

Although both types of cardio raise your heart rate, at a lower heart rate (during LISS training) your body prefers to use fat for its energy, thus burning fat. At a higher heart rate, your body starts to use sugar instead of fat for energy, thus burning sugar and tapping into your glycogen stores.

So LISS essentially sounds like the perfect form of cardio right? That’s our goal anyway huh, to burn fat! Not quite so simple .. with anything, our bodies adapt to things really quickly, so at some point your body will get used to your LISS training and you won’t get the results you want and crave. Also a study was done by Pacheco which found that rats that did HIIT training lost more fat than the rats who did LISS training (however rats are very different to humans …). HIIT training has also been found to increase endurance, speed, and your metabolic rate (which may be why it helped contribute to the fat loss in the rats?). What is also interesting is that LISS has been touted as a way to lose fat and keep your muscles (HIIT training has been attributed to muscle loss), whereas other articles state that HIIT actually optimizes muscle strength and growth! Layne Norton wrote an interesting article on it and since hehas a PhD, I really value his input.

So see, there is still a lot of debate as to which is better and honestly I say do what makes you feel good and keeps you interested. And mix it up, keep challenging your body! Try a mix of HIIT and LISS and see how they work for you. Kayla Itsine’s Bikini Body Guide personally recommends quite a lot of LISS training (as she finds this the most effective form of cardio for slimming women’s thighs) and adds in HIIT training towards the end of the program.

I hope this article has been interesting and helpful for you! Let me know of any other articles related to this topic; I am always interested and open to knowing and learning more 🙂

Honestly yours,
Alice
References

Alfonso. (2012). What is LISS cardio? Retrieved from http://angrytrainerfitness.com/2012/06/ask-alfonso-what-is-l-i-s-s-cardio/
Guiraud, et al. (2012). High-Intensity Interval Training in Cardiac Rehabilitation. Sports Medicine, vol. 42(7), pp.587-605.
Itsines, K. (2014). Bikini Body Guide. E-book.
Obadike, O. (2012). Why does HIIT burn so much fat? Retrieved from: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/ask-the-ripped-dude-hiit.html
Norton, L. (2012). Best form of cardio for bodybuilding? Retrieved from http://www.biolayne.com/contest-prep/best-form-of-cardio-for-bodybuilding/

Image from http://elitedaily.com/life/the-results-from-fasted-cardio/

Fitness, Health, Sunday Summary

Sunday Summary

February 16, 2014

Congratulations on another successful week everyone! I hope you have all been mindful of what you have been eating (Valentine’s Day is of course an exception!) and making sure you are staying active throughout the week.

What did you all do for Valentine’s Day? My Valentine of 5 years was sweet enough to come and see visit me (he lives about an hour and a half away) and we went out for Japanese food. I had a delicious and hearty soup of soba noodles (soba noodles are made out of buckwheat) and we shared some gyoza (how can you not?) and some grilled lamb chops.

We went to Sushi Zen; have any of you San Franciscans ever been there?

Apart from the extremely decadent banoffee pie (recipe here) I made as a Valentine’s Day gift, this weekend has been surprisingly healthy. I for one always give myself a little more wiggle room during the weekends because I like to meet up for meals with friends and I know that it is unrealistic to expect to eat healthily 100% of the time. My boyfriend and I went to a great restaurant for lunch yesterday in the Castro area of San Francisco called Chow. They had many healthy options, and a lot of their offerings were organic which is always nice to see. I got a Chai BaBa Chai to drink (delishhhh), Arancini as a shared appetizer and an amazing Beet salad with greens, fennel, endive, grapefruit, goat cheese and avocado.

Jump rope is #bae

In fitness news, I have re-discovered my love for jump rope (a.k.a skipping for all my European readers)! I became inspired by seeing amazing jump rope videos by the likes of Michael Olajide, Jr. who trains various models including Adriana Lima, and bernapril20 from Instagram. Jump rope is also a great form of cardio and strength conditioning so I highly recommend you try it out. I recently reached out to Miss Galaxy Australia 2012, Danielle Johnson, and asked her what she did to keep her legs in amazing shape, and one of her pieces of advice was to jump rope! So just do it everyone, it’s cheap, can be done anywhere and portable.

Here is a little video I posted of me on Instagram doing criss-cross jumps. I was SO excited I could do these again … they are harder than they look everyone!!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1yxSXAEfTY&feature=youtu.be]

Hope everyone had a great weekend, and have a great fresh start to your week! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave a message in the comment section below, email me or get in touch via my social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Pinterest).

Honestly yours,
Alice

Fitness

Elevate Fitness: Ele_Sculpt

January 30, 2014

Last week, I tried out a new workout class called Ele_sculpt at a workout studio called Elevate Group Fitness. Although I love the gym and all of the workouts I do, I walk past this place on my way to the gym and it made me wonder what it was. There are two locations, one in Hayes Valley and one on Ocean Avenue; I walk past the one on Ocean Avenue. I was really curious about what they had to offer (yoga? pilates?) and I like to try new things to shake things up and keep my body challenged. Wonderfully enough, if you have never been to a class there, your first class is free!

Elevate Fitness

It was really sunny that day so apologies for the shadows .. isn’t the exterior cute though? So friendly and welcoming.

Anyway, I decided to go to an Ele_sculpt class although there are a total of three classes to go to: Ele_sculpt, Ele_barre and Ele_yoga. I was told is that Ele_sculpt is a more all over body workout so you hit your arms, core and legs. Ele_barre is more focused on giving you long and lean dancers legs (you can’t elongate your legs by the way folks, but you can give the illusion of length). Ele_yoga is a yoga practice but incorporating elements of aerial yoga (something I really, really want to try)!

I walked into the studio and … I saw the amazing pieces of equipment that you are seeing above!! I absolutely love using bands to workout with so by this point I was about to die at how excited I was. The demographic was definitely older than I thought. I don’t know why but I thought everyone would be 20 year olds or something. Everyone was very nice and friendly though, they all obviously knew each other and there was a great sense of community.

The next hour was intense .. I consider myself to be a pretty fit person but geez, I was disgustingly sweaty in the first 20 minutes .. We started out with some yoga, and a cute little motivational speech which was a nice touch and then we dove straight into it. Core work, cardio, leg work, arm work … it covered it all. We used the barre for the leg work and I was embarassed at how much I had to stop haha, but I was a lot better when it came to the arm work. My current goal for this year is to do 10 consecutive pull ups AND chin ups so I have been working my upper body a laaaht.

This is Amanda, the lovely and informative instructor who taught the class that day! Ignore me though lol. I loved her energy and the fact that she made sure to walk around and check everyone’s form.

All in all I really enjoyed the class! Although I am quite a gym junkie (I repeat, building upper body strength …) I would definitely go again and I recommend you all give it a go 🙂