Aerobics vs. Anaerobics for fat loss

[raymond3]

Originally Posted by kong

The write up in Alwyn's blog didn't say anything about a caloric deficit, did it? Just that "dietary intake was monitored closely..."

Thats still irrelavent. If you are doing cardio or any type of exercise, you are going to burn calories. This could be fat or muscle (and some water). The only way I could see someone gaining 'fat' from doing cardio is if they burned off alot of muscle and the lean mass/bodyfat ratio decreased. Then I guess they could have a higher bodyfat %. Still not buying it.

[karky]

i think what kong is trying to say that if someone eats above maintence, AND doing cardio, they generally wont loose fat.

[raymond3]

I agree, but I wouldnt think they would lose much fat from hiit either if eating a surplus of caloires. Maybe keep fat gain down, but not lose it to a large extent. Just my opinion.

[Lost Dog]

Originally Posted by raymond3

I agree, but I wouldnt think they would lose much fat from hiit either if eating a surplus of caloires. Maybe keep fat gain down, but not lose it to a large extent. Just my opinion.

Both groups eat 2000 calories worth of food.

Group A does ss cardio, burning 1050 calories in their week of pedaling, etc. No afterburn to speak of.

Group B does interval cardio, burning 750 calories in their week of pedaling, etc. But their afterburn keeps their metabolism up for quite a while. They burn an extra 200 or so calories per day.

Assuming that Group A ate just enough to stay at maintenance and Group B was eating at the same level, group B would lose about .5 per week. After 15 weeks, you have lost some fat*, while your rivals haven't.

It's 2.5kg (5.5lbs) in 15 weeks. That's cool and all, but not dramatic. It only takes a slight deficit.

* My math gives them about 7.5lbs, but maybe they ate a snickers.

[dos]

How about you guys look at the cited study and berate that. I guarantee that AC looked at the methods and the specifics of the study so maybe you should as well before jumping on AC. Use common sense guys.....the bottom line is that anaerobic training will ....and will always be ....superior to steady state training for fat loss, period. Nobody's saying that aerobic training will make you fat....I haven't seen that as anyone's goal yet. Have you?

[Terry Monk]

Originally Posted by Lost Dog

The good news. AC seemed to indicate that it was really meant for those who had stubborn fat. Seems that 99.9% of us are merely fat and haven't gotten down to the stubborn stuff yet.

I'm VERY proud to say that I'm down to that stubborn fat.... but alas, I'm down to that stubborn fat...

I've really got to stay focused and determined. I know I can do it. I may have to give AC's interview a listen.... thanks for the link Roland.

[Chiron]

Originally Posted by dos

How about you guys look at the cited study and berate that. I guarantee that AC looked at the methods and the specifics of the study so maybe you should as well before jumping on AC. Use common sense guys.....the bottom line is that anaerobic training will ....and will always be ....superior to steady state training for fat loss, period. Nobody's saying that aerobic training will make you fat....I haven't seen that as anyone's goal yet. Have you?

A few loyal readers will remember a few weeks ago that I hypothesized that interval training would help fat loss, but steady state aerobic training may actually have a negative effect in a fat loss program:

The steady state group GAINED 0.5kg of fat in 15 weeks.
The interval training group LOST on average 2.5kg of fat in the same time frame.

Again, look at the numbers - the aerobic training group GAINED fat. The Interval Training group lost 5-8 times as much fat as the steady state group gained despite training for half the time.

Dos, could that not be taken as an implication that steady state can make you gain fat?

[dos]

It's not an implication.....the aerobic group DID in fact gain fat.....if you want to see the details, look at the methods and results of the study.

Everyone is debating the fact of whether or not aerobic training actually resulted in fat GAIN...in this study, IT DID! deal with it. We can all say studies are skewed etc. but the reality is that this is what THIS study showed.

[RacerBill]

I poked around Alwyns blog and there's no direct link to the study or even an abstract.

I re-read what he had to say about it, though. "Dietary intake was regularly monitored through food diaries." That would imply that the study depended on the participants being both accurate and honest with the foods and the amounts. More importantly, it doesn't really address whether the participants were eating maintenance level calories, or caloric excess or deficit.

Certainly I respect Alwyn and I understand why he's coming to the conclusion that steady state cardio lowered metabolism of the subjects and that's why they ended up gaining fat. But I want to know more about how this study was conducted.

[Chiron]

Originally Posted by dos

It's not an implication.....the aerobic group DID in fact gain fat.....if you want to see the details, look at the methods and results of the study.

Everyone is debating the fact of whether or not aerobic training actually resulted in fat GAIN...in this study, IT DID! deal with it. We can all say studies are skewed etc. but the reality is that this is what THIS study showed.

But it is an implication. Ya, the aerobic group gained fat. Whether it was the aerobic exercise, or another possible factor like diet, that caused the fat gain is what we are questioning.

No one is sitting here bashing AC. From what I've seen here all of us respect him. But that's no reason to take what he says about this study as gospel.

[Lost Dog]

I don't understand what you might find in the study that could change the implication much.

What matters is that things were pretty much equal, with the exception of the type of cardio performed. You could slide the calories up or down, but your still have 5 1/2 lbs of fat loss vs a tiny bit of fat gain. If they ate less, then what? What if they ate more? What would change except the amounts of gains/losses? I don't think there's some magic threshold where the rules suddenly change.

[dos]

Originally Posted by Chiron

But it is an implication. Ya, the aerobic group gained fat. Whether it was the aerobic exercise, or another possible factor like diet, that caused the fat gain is what we are questioning.

No one is sitting here bashing AC. From what I've seen here all of us respect him. But that's no reason to take what he says about this study as gospel.

AC is referencing a study that backs a claim that steady state training is inferior for fat burning....period. Say what you want about the study design, controls etc. but these WERE the findings....you can't dispute them. Its not like they said, 'hey, let's put the anaerobic group on a calorie restricted diet...and in the meantime, let's put the steady-state group on calorie surplus'. I have not seen the entire study but I would guess that they had enough subjects, control and design to feel confident in their findings.

Okay, lets, for the sake of putting things in perspective say the steady-state DIDN'T gain an oz. of fat....the interval group LOST 5 1/2 lbs. of fat. Isn't this the focus of the blog post???

[Chiron]

Originally Posted by dos

AC is referencing a study that backs a claim that steady state training is inferior for fat burning....period. Say what you want about the study design, controls etc. but these WERE the findings....you can't dispute them. Its not like they said, 'hey, let's put the anaerobic group on a calorie restricted diet...and in the meantime, let's put the steady-state group on calorie surplus'. I have not seen the entire study but I would guess that they had enough subjects, control and design to feel confident in their findings.

Originally Posted by dos

Okay, lets, for the sake of putting things in perspective say the steady-state DIDN'T gain an oz. of fat....the interval group LOST 5 1/2 lbs. of fat. Isn't this the focus of the blog post???

But no one has stated that intervals aren't superior to steady state for fat loss. I even said that in my first post questioning the findings. And I hate steady state cardio. lol But there is a difference between saying something is inferior vs. saying it's counter-productive. You're acting like we're attacking AC when no one has done any such thing. No one's said anything like "I think AC's lost his mind." We're questioning a study where the aerobic participants gained fat while there are tons of studies and real world evidence showing aerobic exercisers losing fat. The fact that we're skeptical really shouldn't be surprising considering the study itself is nowhere to be found. It's just good healthy skepticism.

[vuduchyld]

Originally Posted by Lost Dog

Both groups eat 2000 calories worth of food.

Group A does ss cardio, burning 1050 calories in their week of pedaling, etc. No afterburn to speak of.

Group B does interval cardio, burning 750 calories in their week of pedaling, etc. But their afterburn keeps their metabolism up for quite a while. [bold]They burn an extra 200 or so calories per day.[/bold]

Assuming that Group A ate just enough to stay at maintenance and Group B was eating at the same level, group B would lose about .5 per week. After 15 weeks, you have lost some fat*, while your rivals haven't.

It's 2.5kg (5.5lbs) in 15 weeks. That's cool and all, but not dramatic. It only takes a slight deficit.

* My math gives them about 7.5lbs, but maybe they ate a snickers.

LD, I'm curious about where you come up with that figure...200 or so calories per day. One of the things that I have always struggled with is that I've never really been able to quantify that afterburn effect.

From my own personal experience with HIIT versus steady state cardio, it's a little hard to imagine that doing so much less equals so much more. I find it tough to fathom that I can burn an extra 1400 calories per week by doing 3 shorter sessions of HIIT.

Again, just for me personally, one issue may be that maybe I've developed a fairly high lactate threshhold (I think that's the term) from years of running. It's easy enough for me to maintain a higher heart rate for an extended time.

I'm almost 40, so let's just say my max heart rate is right around 180. I'm actually not in very good shape right now (sadly...working on it, though...) but I can go out and run for 30 minutes at a heart rate of 152-155. Call it a "tempo" run.

When I do HIIT...again, remember that I'm not in great shape right now, which means I probably can't push the way I might be able to if I were in better shape...I generally only see my heart rate above 170 a couple of times during the session (I'm doing 200m "sprints"). I can not keep this up nearly as long, so I end up doing 4-5 per session and including a warm up and cool down, I'm going for maybe 20 minutes.

If I can do steady cardio at 80% of my MHR, would that mitigate the difference in "afterburn"?

How does one even go about figuring the "afterburn"?

[gobbla]

That's is something that always concerns me about the "proof" shown in some of these studies. The steady state group is going @ 60% of their V02 max for 40min (not a big deal at all). The HIIT group is going balls out for 60 bouts 8sec on 12 off(OMG I'm going to die).

I really just don't see how the two can really be compared. We've shown that the group that works harder gets better results....duh. We've shown that putting out very little effort gets very little reward....duh. I'm not 100% convinced that it's proven any more than that. IMO it's just plain dumb to study a group and say "ok...you guys hold back...don't push yourself" and another and say "if you don't push yourself I'm going to kill your children" and group #2 not get better results every time. At the very least they should have taken % control off the V02 group and said "ok, run as hard as you can for 40min". OR taken the interval group and gave them some sort of pacer to say that each interval can ONLY go so fast.

[Grimass]

For me, no matter what the studies say, I could never go back to doing SS cardio after doing HIIT. Running at a constant pace bores me to tears. Typically, I'll do ten intervals of running at 9.5 mph for one minute and then walking at 3.5 mph for one minute. Usually adds up to around 2.4 miles in distance, including 5-6 minutes total for warm-up/cool down.

The great thing about HIIT is that it can always take the same amount of time for me. If I find that 9.5 mph is getting easy, I'll just up the intensity. In general, I'm much more exhausted after 10 HIIT intervals than I am after a 40 minute run. Plus, I'm making my body adapt to running at a faster speed, perhaps conditioning the body more for quickness and agility?

[OldGuy]

I don't see anywhere in this thread that anyone has berated AC.