Why Slow Cardio Sucks for Fat Loss

Hey I hope you’re doing great and still working hard at your goals as this year wraps up.

Last week I was talking to a new client about fat loss and toning up. She told me she was doing lots of cardio and now looking to start working with weights. Apparently, many people are still stuck doing long duration, low-intensity cardiovascular exercise.


I explained that metabolic resistance training is the fastest way to fat loss and the easiest way I could describe it was “cardio strength training”.

Here’s the deal: if you’re looking to achieve maximal benefit from the time you put into your workouts, long duration “slow-go” cardio is okay if you’re a distance athlete, but NOT the way to go, if you are looking to lose weight.
Here’s why:

1. Not enough calories burned — 45 minutes on the treadmill may burn 300 calories if you’re lucky, which is ONE TENTH of a pound of fat. Exercise ten hours a week and you might just lose a pound! Not good.
Which brings me to my next point:

2. Too much time invested — if you’re like most, you don’t have ten hours a week to put into working out each week. The good news is you only need a few hours tops for fat loss. I’ll get to that later.


3. Slow Cardio is just plain BORING — sitting on an exercise bike staring at the back of some sweating guy in front of you for 45-60 minutes everyday? I don’t think so.


4. No prolonged metabolic benefit — Did you know that with higher intensity exercise it is possible to continue to burn calories for up to 48 hours post workout? It’s true (see Burn Fat Fast). But you know what else is true? Long duration, low intensity cardio provides virtually NO prolonged elevation in metabolism. In fact, with slow-go cardio, metabolism returns to baseline almost IMMEDIATELY following the exercise session.

And finally:

5. Minimal fat loss — Fewer calories burned per minute and virtually no additional calories burned afterward = minimal, if any fat loss results. And what’s the point to doing cardio if not for the results.

So if long slow cardio isn’t the solution, what is?

Short duration, high-intensity exercise. Less time, faster results!


The beauty of “high intensity” is anyone can do it because it’s relative to you. I don’t care if you’re already in great shape or if you’re 50 lbs overweight, you can exercise with increased intensity.

It might be a sprint or a walk up hill but somehow you need to increase the intensity.

Stop doing what doesn’t work and embrace what does work.

If you want the end result, I urge you to add metabolic training to your training. For a sample program try the backyard strength workout.