I have been trying to lose a few pounds by walking more and eating less. Just monitoring the input and output to have a net fall in calories. Sometimes this involves walking a hell of a long way. It appears this does not work. If your goal is to burn as much fat as possible then also try to incorporate some sprint interval sessions. These are much less catabolic than longer, steady state cardio workouts, and will kick up the growth hormone circulation in your body even further. When doing so, remember to take rest and recovery into consideration so you don’t over train. Make your weight-lifting sessions full-body workouts, hitting all the major muscle groups three times per week, and then add in one to three interval sprint sessions on top of that. JD Johannes seems to recommend the same thing:
Cardio only works for a few weeks until the work load must be increased, then you get to a point that the body produces excess cortisol that burns up muscle, and cardio shrinks muscle size–what kind of cardio can be done? The answer is good old-fashioned sprints. The modern term for sprints is High Intensity Interval Training or HIIT. This type of training can be done on a treadmill, elliptical machine, stepper, stationary bike or outdoors anywhere there is a flat surface for 100 meters. I prefer to run my sprints outdoors in a parking lot down the block. In HIIT you alternate between periods of high intensity and low intensity. A person does not need to go as hard and as fast as they can during the high intensity–they just need to go hard and fast enough to get the heart and lungs working. The low intensity periods can be like a power walk, or a nice medium pace. The time intervals are flexible. Most people do not go past two minutes during a high intensity period. A two-minute period of low intensity is generally the longest most people go before cranking it up again.
I really can’t see myself sprinting without feeling an idiot – or my head coming off due my neck issues…
Stuart Austin 