It really difficult for me to recommend an exact cardio routine unless I know the diet someone is following. If someone is “carb depleted”, so following a strict diet, I am going to recommend a cardio routine that’s different to someone who spent the past 3-5 days eating rich carbohydrate based food (pasta, rice, breads). This is one of those cases, where a one-size-fits-all approach does not work.

It seems these days most of our cardio programs are based around clients who always indulged over the weekend and others around Easter and Christmas when things generally take a dive but during the months in-between with guidance from a trainer you can make a difference and keep body fat at a lower level. From a trainer perpective we could spend the first half of the week getting clients back into the fat burning phase because clients have over loaded on carbs on the weekend.

You must get your body in a fat burning state in order to get the results quicker.

What is The Perfect Condition for the Body to Drop Body Fat?

There is a certain state that lends itself well to dropping body fat. That state is slightly “carb depleted”. (the easiest way to do this is to increase you protein intake and reduce your carb intake)When the body is storing a limited amount of carbs in the muscles, it tends to use stored body fat for energy. If someone is “carbed up” all the time, they are very unlikely to get lean, so they have loads of energy to do  a solid workout but most of the energy used is from the carbs component and not the fats unless you would like to spend at least 2 hours per session to eventually deplet the carbs then continue to burn fats.

We know that the body will use fuel accordingly -

High intensity training  will burn more total caloris and the majority will be from carbs and less fats  and if you do a long slower session you burn less calories however you burn more from body fat storage, this is true but again time is not on our side and, if you were to look at anyone that has lost weight successfully regardless of the diet they followed you will find that  some key point will sound similar in all the different diet patterns, the same rules apply more exercise and less calories consumed.

Reducing calories  from fats and  carbs, mainly starchy vegetables and certain fruit pack a mean punch when it comes to amount of calories being consumed.

Choose fruits and vegetable with lower calories.

How do you know when the Body Is “Carbed Up”

If you experience a ½ kg weight gain overnight, it is a good indicator that your body is carbed up. If you look slightly puffier than normal, or your muscles look bigger than normal…you are probably too carbed up to get the best fat burning effect from your workouts. This is really common with women that say ‘oh my jeans are getting to tight around my thighs, no more squats please’ when in fact the carb intake has been probably higher then usual, remember carb absorbs more fluid then protein and fats. (obviously other factors could contribute to increase in fluid as well)

How to Do Cardio to Quickly Reduce the Carbs in Your System

Avoid  long cardio workouts it’s just  unrealistic for weight loss (even though it works) Think along the lines of jogging medium to hard for 45-60 minutes, yes that’s not considered long!

By doing  a sustained jog or bike ride etc this is a good way to burn carbs and get back to the best condition to burn body fat. So instead of waiting for 2-3 days of clean eating to get back to a slightly carb depleted state, you can get there within a day.

When to Incorporate long cardio sessions

This type of cardio should be used on a limited basis to get the body back to where it needs to be. Let’s say you ate pizza on Saturday and went to a BBQ on Sunday, then if you felt a bit “carbed up” you would do a longer more drawn out cardio session on Monday to get your body back to fat burning mode. From that point on you would stick to HIIT (high intensity interval training) or bodyweight circuits followed by a short duration of low-to-moderate intensity steady state cardio. You would also clean up your diet for the remainder of the week.

Longer or Shorter Sessions Depending Upon Your Condition

The main thing to remember is that if you are eating less calories, you need to be careful that the cardio sessions are brief and focused . If your diet is loose you will want to incorporate longer cardio sessions to get your body to the right condition. Once this is achieved you will want to stick with mainly HIIT and continue to  tighten up your diet.

Note: Use this type of cardio to avoid the state of being too carbed up. The real fat loss results will happen when you combine intense HIIT and Intervals in a slightly carb-depleted state. Being slightly carb depleted can make you feel sluggish at times especially if applying HIIT, however the fitter you get the easier it gets besides it only a short session. Its also possible that the body will slowly start to use energy from the carb cycle(waste product of exercise,uric acid)as another form of fuel.