Walking or running to burn most calories???

[Quiller]

My wife and I argue about this. I believe that it takes hard work and exertion to lose fat and shape up. Her idea is to walk a couple times a week and that is all she needs to do. I am from the no pain no gain days of bodybuilding and I cannot convince her that it takes a lot of hard work and strenuous activity to get the body to change.. Any ideas on this to persuade her to take a more serious look at her routine would be appreciated..

She is 33 yrs
5'5"
150 lbs

Of course I want her to get down to 110 as soon as possible so you can see my frustration when she just wants to walk around.

Natglutes is my idea of a woman, I love the muscles. I would love to get my wife hooked on the iron bug and do a couple cycles of Anavar..

Quiller

 

[Quiller]

Hell no it's not working, SHE'S 150 LBS.....

She is frustrated about this almost as much as I am. We have 3 beautiful little girls which brought along the extra weight. She used to be in pretty good shape. Now, she goes to the gym a couple days a week and walks on the tread mill and maybe works a few light excersies. Diet, seems to be light and mostly quality foods...
I think she needs to up the intensity and frequency, but I am just her husband so she doesn't listen to me. LOL



Quiller

 

[Temple]

I'm thinking that Nat probably weighs more than 110. Are her goals for herself consistent with what yours are for her? You can't force someone into this lifestyle. If she is frustrated with her lack of progress then what Spats said.....

 

[Quiller]

Yeah, I am sure Nat is around 140 or so but that is all muscle and looks great on her. My wife would love to have a hard body like that but doesn't see that with some hard work she could have it.

SHe has the attitude that Nat is just lucky.

I would not force her into anything, but if she wants to have a slimmer, fit shape then she needs to do the diet and work required.
So what I am asking for some help is, give her some ideas of training , frequency, intensity and diet to drop about 12 points of body fat and lose about 40 lbs..

 

[Temple]

Was just making sure that we were all on the same page . Sooooooo - if she wants a lean hard body then she is going to have to dig in her heels and work for it. The babies are NO excuse - I never waddled into a delivery room at an ounce less than 210 and have weighed over 200 not pregnant (just retaining a whole bunch of donuts). I have also been anorexic/bulimic so I have covered the whole spectrum. I am 39 years old and am currently in the best shape of my life. She needs to learn to eat properly and train with intensity. Cardio will play a part but should not be the focus. One hour at moderate intensity like Spats said. Also Spats has a good point as far as her cortisol levels (heavy training will help with the stress) but to give you an example my mother was always very lean until she spent a year caring for my terminally ill grandmother and packed on 40# and the only thing that changed was her stress level.

And tell her that bodies like Nat's are not luck - they are hard ass work and discipline. It all comes down to how bad do you want it?

As for you initial question IMO running will only buy you bad knees. Longer duration at moderate intensity is more effective but you can't approach cardio like a stroll in the park either.

 

[wilson6]

Clarification

Stress = cortisol = fat

SPAT, cortisol is a lipolytic hormone. Causes the breakdown of fat by turning on hormone sensitive lipase via a cAMP independent mechanism.

In high concentrations (i.e., Cushings) it will cause for unknown reasons, redistribution with a humpback appearance. Otherwise, it causes the release of fat from peripheral stores. It does cause insulin resistance and the breakdown of skeletal muscle for gluconeogenesis. It also upregulates the human myostatin gene.

Walking one mile = 100 calories. While walking at a moderate pace burns fat almost exclusively, one would have to walk for 2 hrs in a fasted state to burn 72 grams of fat.

In conjunction with a good, mostly low carb diet and heavy lifting program, then walking would work better than moderate intensity cardio because it doesn't use muscle glycogen. The difference in total fat burned between 2 hrs of moderate intensity cardio and walking is about 24 grams (very little). The remaining energy comes from muscle glycogen during moderate intensity cardio.

None-the-less, 2 walks a week alone won't do shit

W6

 

[The Shadow]

I just realized I didn't answer your thread title Q. Running will burn more cals, but walking for an hour MIGHT burn more fat...depends on distance or sprints.

Exactly - Running: burns more TOTAL calories but a few %age of the are from fat

Walking burns LESS calorie total but a high %age of fat.

My answer:

DO both:

30 seconds of running followed by a minute of brisk walking.

Repeat for 10 cycles and add a cycle every few days.

 

[Gladiola]

She should TAKE AN AEROBICS CLASS!!!

Seriously - whatever gets your Heart Rate up enough will burn calories - you may as well have FUN doing it if you can! Or just bike -> get outside, elliptical, stair master, mix em up, whatever. It should be whatever SHE enjoys!

Does SHE want to do this? If she doesn't want it, it's not gonna happen. Has she ever lifted weights in her life???

"Luck"? Yeah, & muscle is so easy to build - I got my biceps accidently. Not like I busted my butt for my muscle or anything...

 

[FitFossil]

The quote goes something like this: "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got."

If she wants to keep making progress, she needs to increase the intensity of her workouts as her fitness level improves, both for cardio and weightlifting. She doesn't need to kill herself in her workouts, but they should be challenging. I prefer alternating between hard and easy, but others prefer moderate and steady.

She'd do well to prioritize weightlifting over cardio if she really wants to change her body. The added muscle mass will make fat loss much easier, since muscle is metabolically active. Also, as muscle is denser than fat, if she trades 10 pounds of fat for 10 pounds of muscle, her measurements will be smaller, and her metabolism higher. I still enjoy cardio for stress relief, heart health, and some fat-burning, but my belief is building/maintaining muscle and diet are the biggest keys to long term leanness.

 

[TEXgrl]

just my opinion, but if my husband ever gave me a magical number on my weight he would be happy with or that i should get to i would be very offended and i think i would feel like any progress i made was not enough, so why bother to try? i don't think weight should be the issue, her being fit and happy should be the issue here.