In the past 25 years I have heard it all when it came to cardio and fat loss or a least it seems like it.” Cardio must be done on a empty stomach first thing in the morning”. “steady state cardio will not make you ripped, you must do intervals” and of course the ever popular “cardio must be done in the target “fat burning zone” to be effective for fat loss. All  of these statements are backed up by reams of scientific studies, sometimes the same study is even used to prove two opposite opinions.

There is nothing wrong with scientific studies. Many amazing life changing things have been discovered,either on purpose or by accident, by such studies. It actually amazes me that so much time and money has been spent on the subject of exercise and fat loss. It seems like such a waste of time for the rats and untrained college students that are usually the subjects in the studies. Isn’t there cheese to be eaten and beer to be drunk? This would seem like a much better use of this resource.

Why not look at more relevant examples for the answers. People that actually get lean for a “hobby” Subjects that get themselves into single digit bodyfat land just for shits and giggles. Yes if you have not guessed it I am talking about the lowly bodybuilder. More specifically the natural bodybuilder because you can not attribute his extreme leanness to some pharmaceutical concoction. He or she has had to achieve this leanness through their training protocol. Surely the answer must lie with these speedo wearing hairless creatures. Funny thing though, when you examine the cardio stategies employed by this group.  Some swear by early morning cardio, some by slow long steadystate and others worshiped at the interval alter. There isno more agreement among this group than the lab coat wearing pencilnecks.

The simple fact is all of these methods have been used with success to achieve extreme leanness. But how can this be?  Surely there must be a best way! Well sorry, there is no best way to do your cardio to promote fat loss and here is why. cardio is not the biggest factor in getting your body to lose fat. In My opinion there are two factors that are much more important.

1) calorie deficit

 2) efficient metabolism

The single biggest fact that effects these two thing is, drumroll please, DIET. A properly designed diet can effectively put you into a calorie deficit while still maintaining a efficient fat burning metabolism. No matter what type of cardio you do if your diet is not on track you will not achieve extreme leanness, not even close. And the beauty is the better your diet the less cardio you will have to do before the six pack makes its grand entrance.

So lets end the debate about the hows, and whens, of cardio. Put some of that time into tightening up your diet and then do whatever type of cardio you chose. Just be careful not to step on any  rats doing wind sprints along the way.