Best form of cardio for weight loss I Best cardio for fat loss at the gym
In this instructional video, Eric Roberts explains that the only true driver of fat loss is an overall calorie deficit, which is primarily achieved through nutrition. He then evaluates three major cardio considerations for fat loss: (1) fasted versus non‑fasted cardio, concluding that the timing of food intake has minimal impact on fat loss but non‑fasted cardio may improve performance and calorie burn due to higher energy availability; (2) high‑intensity interval training (HIIT) versus low‑intensity steady‑state (LISS) cardio, arguing that while HIIT can burn more calories in the short term, its high stress on the nervous, hormonal, and muscular systems impairs recovery, sleep, appetite control, and strength‑training performance, ultimately making LISS a more sustainable choice for fat loss; (3) the best cardio equipment, recommending low‑eccentric, low‑intensity options such as walking, sled pushes, and the Assault Bike (with optional rowing), because they minimize muscle damage, support recovery, and align with LISS principles. Throughout, Roberts ties each point back to how it influences calorie balance, energy systems (glycogen vs. fat utilization), and the ability to maintain a consistent diet and strength‑training regimen.
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YouTube, what is going on? Welcome back to the channel. Welcome to the video. Got it right this time. In this video, we are going to be covering the best cardio for fat loss, and we're going to get a bit in depth here, so stick with me. But I want to make sure you understand what's going on, because especially with cardio, for some reason there are so many beliefs and there's so many myths and there's so many thoughts and there's so many school of thoughts and I'm gonna give you one guy's perspective. I'm gonna give you one guy's point of view. I'm gonna give you some information. I'm gonna give you some facts. I'm gonna give you hopefully everything you need to know so when you leave this video you will be set up good to go for what you know to be the best form of cardio for fat loss. And so there's 3 main things that we're going to cover in this video. First is going to be fasted versus non-fasted cardio. Second is going to be HIIT versus LISS. Now you've probably heard of HIIT cardio before. And number 3 is going to be, you know, sometimes I often get asked what is the best piece of cardio equipment? Is it the treadmill? Is it the elliptical? Is it the bike? Is it the rower? Whatever it is, we're gonna cover all that stuff here in this video. So number 1, let's start with classifying which is better, fasted versus non-fasted. Truthfully, it don't fucking matter. And here's the thing, when it comes to just all of this, by the way, this can get encompassed in this one very basic thought, which if you follow me, you probably know what I'm about to say. But if you don't follow me, you're gonna find out right now. When it comes to fat loss, the most important thing and the only thing that matters is you are in an overall calorie deficit. There is no other way to lose body fat other than being in an overall calorie deficit. If you do not know what a calorie deficit is, I'm going to link a video here above that explains everything you need to know about a calorie deficit. Now, which by the way is mainly done through your nutrition, so let me make that very clear as well. We're talking about cardio for fat loss and you'll understand why here in a second, but mainly fat loss is done primarily through your nutrition. Now, going back to fasted versus non-fasted. Fasted cardio just means that you are basically doing cardio without eating anything prior. So that's when most people do fasted cardio in the morning when they wake up, and that's when they would do a fasted— because again, fasted because they haven't eaten anything, right? And obviously non-fasted is if you eat something before you do your cardio session. And so the reality is it truly does not matter whether you do your cardio fasted versus non-fasted. Let me explain some things why. Number 1, you might have heard before, or people might tell you, oh, Fasted cardio is better because you are going to, you have no carbohydrates to burn because you haven't eaten anything yet. So you have no carbohydrates, and so that means you're going to use fat for fuel, and you're gonna burn fat for fuel during that workout, during that cardio session, which means you would lose more body fat. And while I understand why you may think, oh, okay, well, I'm gonna burn fat, so that means I'm gonna burn more overall body fat, no, unfortunately. That is not always the case because again, unless you are in this overall calorie deficit, I don't care how much fasted cardio you do, you are not going to burn any body fat. And when it comes to, again, fasted versus non-fasted, just because— let's say you're doing fasted cardio— just because you're using fat for fuel, that doesn't mean you're actually burning off body fat. It just means you're using fat for fuel. Because again, unless you create this overall calorie deficit, this overall negative energy expenditure, you are intaking less calories than what your body is burning, you can do all the fasted cardio you want. Just because you're using fat for fuel, that doesn't mean you're physically burning body fat. And so if somebody tries to tell you that, and that's why fasted cardio is better, they're just unfortunately inaccurate because the only way to burn actual body fat off of your body is going to be through a calorie deficit. And so this is why fasted versus non-fasted, it doesn't really matter. I typically prefer not fasted, so I prefer eating something before any form of exercise. And we'll kind of get into that as well when we talk about HIIT cardio versus LISS cardio. But I typically prefer eating something before any form of exercise because what I've seen just through knowledge and experience, I used to be an in-person coach and— What I would see sometimes is people would come in without eating anything for 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 hours, and either one of two things would happen. Number one, their performance would massively decrease. They would not be able to do as much, to go as hard, go as long of duration of time, any one of those performance-based things. Or number two, they just get— they almost fucking pass out. Because what happens is if you don't have any of these carbohydrates in your system or food in your system, Your body is going to have to get it from basically your blood sugar, right? So what happens is your body starts to use this blood sugar for energy and your blood sugar drops and you get super like lightheaded, all that kind of stuff happens. This is if you don't eat beforehand. And so typically speaking, I like to eat beforehand to number one, avoid that, but also number two, again, think about it from a— if you're eating food beforehand, you're probably gonna have more energy. If you have more energy, Whether you realize it or not, you very well might realize it and you probably will realize it, but whether you realize it or not, if you eat food before, you're probably going to have more energy. If you have more energy, what's probably going to happen? You're probably going to push harder. Again, you might not even realize it, but on a cellular level, you can very well be working harder, producing more ATP, producing more energy, burning more calories because you have more food in your system, as opposed to if you're going fasted And you feel like shit and you're super lethargic and super tired. You're not pushing as hard. Your body's not acting as fast. So technically speaking, if you're getting really nitty-gritty, you'd probably actually burn a bit more calories doing it with fasted versus non-fasted. Is it that big of a deal? No, probably not. But just going down to the nitty-gritty, you'd probably see better results from doing non-fasted. And again, this all comes back to your overall calorie intake for the day, especially when it comes to fat loss. Fasted versus non-fasted. I typically lean towards the side of not fasted. Eat something before your cardio session or workout session because that is going to be, typically speaking, what is the most beneficial for you. So that is number 1. Now number 2, HIIT versus LISS cardio. So really quickly, HIIT cardio just means high-intensity interval training. You probably know that. LISS cardio just means low-intensity steady So one more time, high-intensity interval training, low-intensity steady state. So one, HIIT is like this right here, whereas LISS is like this right here. And you've— this one's probably the biggest one you're looking for because most people have tried to sell programs and sell this theory of like HIIT cardio is better for weight loss, better for fat loss. It's gonna— for example, people say HIIT cardio is going to burn more calories. So here's— we'll kind of get into this. In the short term, HIIT cardio very well might burn more calories. In the short term, stick with me here. Let's say you're doing 20 minutes of a HIIT cardio session versus 20 minutes of a low-intensity steady-state cardio session. And let's just use walking as that example, because if you're walking, that is low-intensity steady-state. Let's say you're doing 20 minutes of walking versus 20 minutes of HIIT. In that moment in time, you are probably going to burn more calories from the 20-minute HIIT cardio session. But that's where most people just stop looking. They don't even look past that. Like, that's all they see. All they care about is how many calories they burned in their cardio session. Let me tell you, number one, it's simply just not that big of a deal. And I've done an entire, um, article on this, so I'll link that here below in the description of this video. How many calories you burn during your exercise or cardio session is— it's next to pointless. It's not pointless, obviously it has a role, but it's really not as big of a deal as people make it out to be. So let's just say for— and by the way, what you're using to track your calories burned during your workouts usually aren't accurate anyway. But all this being said, let's say you quote unquote burned 300 calories in 20 minutes versus 150 calories in 20 minutes, right? Here's where most people, again, they just stop right there. What happens is HIIT cardio is a very taxing thing on your body. It's very energy demanding because it's very high intensity. So you're going to have to produce a lot of energy. You're putting a lot of stress on your body. Your stress hormones are going up. Your cortisol is going up. Your catecholamines are going up. Like, these things are going to happen when, especially when you do HIIT cardio. Very frequently throughout the week. Like, I see people doing like 4, 5, 6, 7 HIIT cardio sessions, and that's just— I mean, it's, it's counterproductive for these reasons I'm going to say right here. So in the short term, yes, you may burn more calories, but what happens is when you do HIIT cardio, you tax your nervous system more, you tax your muscular system more, you tax your energy systems more. All of this is things you have to recover from. And really quickly, I want to talk about The way you make an adaptation is, and that's a change in your body, you put a stress in your body, you recover from that stress, and then you adapt to that stress, right? If you're missing the recovery part, you're not gonna ever get to the adapt part. And so what happens is people just keep putting stress on stress on stress on stress. They never recover, they never adapt. Their bodies never change. And it's because you can't ever recover from this. And so, HIIT cardio does a lot of stressful things for your body. So that would be the number one reason why, in my opinion, LISS cardio, let's just say walking, walking would be better for fat loss in that perspective because it puts way less stress on your body and way less things you have to recover from. Actually, LISS cardio would promote stress, I'm sorry, promote recovery, not promote stress. It would promote recovery. Because it's lower intensity, your body's moving, you're pushing nutrients, like all these, you know, you're pushing blood flow and nutrients to your muscles and your system and all that kind of stuff. And so that would actually promote recovery. This is going to take away from recovery. And the second thing we can talk about here is what happens when you're constantly under-recovered? What happens? Many things happen. Number one, your workouts are gonna suffer. So like your strength training program, building muscle, changing your physique. That's gonna take a hit. Your sleep is gonna take a hit, and if your sleep takes a hit, then also your recovery is gonna take a hit. And if your sleep takes a hit and your recovery takes a hit and your workout performance takes a hit, you're just having all these things pushing down, down, down. Now, what happens as well is, again, your stress hormones go up, and so that's gonna obviously cause some issues right there. What also happens is your sleep— again, like I said, your sleep's gonna suffer and your body's constantly under-recovered. So, If you're sleeping poor and you're constantly under-recovered, you're constantly fatigued, what typically happens after that? More cravings, more hunger. Your hormones literally kind of shift towards, I'm clearly under-recovered, I need to make sure I get some more food, more fuel, more food, more fuel. What does this mean? When it comes to fat loss, what are we trying to create from the beginning? A calorie deficit. So when you're doing constant HIIT cardio and you're always fatigued, Always hungry, always tired, less willpower. What do you think is gonna happen? You're not gonna stick to your diet as well. And what did we say earlier about where fat loss is primarily done? Through your nutrition. So that's great, you're burning more calories in the very, very, very, very, very short term with this HIIT cardio, but all of these side effects that can come with it, because it is very, very, very taxing on your body, all of these side effects that can come with it are actually decreasing your ability to stick to your diet, to stick to your calorie deficit, to recover properly, to have good strength training workouts. All of these things are kind of compounding on top of each other to kind of bring your overall number down, right? Let's say your recovery, you know, should be at 100%. Like with this constant HIIT cardio 24/7, you're going down to 70, 60, 50%. And that's just not going to be advantageous for that cycle we talked about where you put a stress on your body, You recover from it and then you adapt to it. This, typically speaking, again, because people just continuously overdo it, is not going to be beneficial for that particular part of, again, changing your body, which is I think why you're even working out in the first place is 'cause you wanna change your body. Of course you can work out for health as well, which you should be working out for your health, but people wanna change their body and that's why they try to do HIIT cardio. So for that reason as well, HIIT cardio was probably gonna take a backseat to LISS or just, again, for recovery. Reference terms here for walking because walking is not going to put a stress on your body. It's not super taxing on your body. It actually promotes recovery. It can actually help mentally de-stress you as well so your stress hormones can actually go down. And so this is going to promote all of that healthier state right here as opposed to HIIT cardio which is promoting more of this like, you know, very, very, very intense fight or flight thing where your body is going to have to recover from it. You know, with other life factors, other stress factors, other workout factors as well, can kind of take back from that. So that would be the number 2 thing. It just really makes it harder to stick to your diet. You're constantly fatigued, constantly hungry, constant cravings. Just makes it a bit harder. The 3rd thing is going to be the energy systems. And so we talked about fasted versus non-fasted cardio. I talked briefly about how if you were fasted, your body's gonna use fat for fuel. If you're not fasted, typically speaking, your body's gonna use more of— Carbs. Glucose or carbohydrates for fuel. And so people think that burning, you know, using fat for fuel is gonna burn more body fat. Technically not the case. So we talked about that, right? HIIT cardio versus LISS cardio. The energy system that you are going to use for HIIT versus LISS cardio is basically going to be— HIIT cardio is gonna be much more glucose-based, which is, think of it, carbohydrates. So you're gonna be burning carbohydrates for fuel. LISS cardio is gonna be more fat dominant, so you're gonna be burning fat for fuel during LISS cardio, during walking, for example. Now, you may think, Eric, you just said it doesn't matter, so why are you bringing this up? Here's why I'm bringing it up. If you are doing HIIT cardio, right, and you're consistently using glucose glycogen as fuel, what's gonna happen is when you go into your strength training sessions, which if you're not strength training, I really, really please start strength training. But when you go into your strength training sessions, typically what happens? Well, since you've already used all of your glycogen, which is again, when you strength train, your body's main source of fuel is glycogen. You've already used all your glycogen and you've already used all your glucose, right? You have glycogen stores in your muscle, right? Again, this is basically just like energy for the workouts. To actually contract a muscle, you need some glycogen and energy and those kind of things, right? So, you store glycogen here. When you do HIIT cardio, like, that require— that energy system that you're using is glycogen-glucose based. And so, when you're doing that, you deplete your glycogen, deplete your glucose, and your body has to kind of recover from that. So, if you're doing that nonstop and then trying to do HIIT cardio on top of that— I'm sorry, and then trying to do strength training on top of that, 2 things. When you go into your strength training, you're gonna be limited on the amount of glucose and glycogen you have. So, you're obviously gonna be limited on How well you can perform, how well your body can perform, how strong you are, how much you can lift. And again, that performance, if your performance drops there, not only is it dropping from your body can't recover from HIIT cardio to begin with, but now your workout performance is dropping as well. So you really are kind of putting yourself behind the 8-ball when it comes to changing your physique because your workout performance is drastically decreasing now. And again, talking about like going back to calorie burn, I hope you're sticking with me here and I apologize if I'm kind of all over the place, but going back to calorie burn here for a second, everybody's so focused on the short-term calorie burn, right? Number 1, if the short-term calorie burn is leading you to just eat more calories 'cause you can't stick to your diet, like, it's a net negative. You're not burning more, like, okay, cool, you're burning more calories, but you're eating more calories, and so it's a net negative. But number 2, if you can't recover from this, your body, like, for example, when you go into your strength training, it's gonna burn less calories there. Because you can't recover, you're not recovered, and your glycogen's depleted, and you're not as strong, and you don't have as good muscle contractions and muscle pumps. And like that over there, that calorie burn's gonna decrease on top of the fact you're probably eating more calories, on top of the fact that when your body's constantly stressed and under-recovered and trying to be in a calorie deficit, you burn less calories to begin with. And so, you know, all of these things coming back to stop looking at the short-term just calorie burn. I just wanted to say that and make sure I said that out loud 'cause it was in my head. But going back to what I was talking about earlier, your workout performance decreases because your energy systems are decreased, as opposed to LISS cardio that requires next to no glycogen. So now the food that you are consuming is going to be put in glycogen stores in your muscles because, again, it's not getting depleted from doing HIIT cardio anymore. It's actually getting stored in your muscles. And so now You can get the best of both worlds. When you're doing this, okay, cool, you're burning fat for fuel, which is like, whatever, but it's more so you can actually save that glycogen for your strength training workouts. And then when you go and do your strength training workouts, you can actually get stronger, you can build more muscle, you can lift more weight, you can do more reps, you can keep your workout performance increased. And so over a period of time, those are my main 3 points, but over a period of time, this right here, like the calorie burn, because that's what everyone focuses on, The calorie burn pretty much evens out because even though you're burning more calories in the short term over here, in the long term over here you're burning just as much, if not more calories. Because again, number one, you're not eating as many calories 'cause you're not under-recovered, so you're sticking to your diet better. That's kind of like the sidebar here, but because you're doing less cardio, you can actually adhere to your training program better. You can actually make sure you're pushing yourself in the gym. You can actually recover properly. You can build more lean muscle mass, which means you're gonna burn more calories at rest. All of the things pretty much even out, if not more in favor of the LISS cardio or the walking. And so just making sure we understand that because I often say HIIT cardio is better for— I'm sorry, walking is better for fat loss than HIIT cardio, and everyone kind of freaks out and they're like, what do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? That's what I mean. So I hope that made sense. If not, please feel free to drop it below. Drop a question below. But that's pretty much why I prefer HIIT— I'm sorry, LISS cardio over here, and that's why I prefer non-fasted cardio because typically speaking most people are gonna benefit more from that. So I hope that made sense right there. And again, LISS cardio is just anything that's like steady state, low intensity, heart rate not getting super high, right? And again, just one more time, when your heart rate spikes really high, again, your stress levels have to kick in, your insulin spikes, all this. And that's not a bad thing, but when you constantly do that, like, that's where people get under-recovered. So, I'll digress on that. I think LISS cardio and non-fasted cardio are the best forms of cardio for fat loss because they're gonna help you with that calorie deficit that much more. So, those are your first 2 things. Now, the last thing, what is the best piece of equipment? Again, people ask me, treadmill, elliptical, rower, bike, what should I do? Here's the thing. Again, now that we know typically speaking low-intensity steady-state cardio is going to be, you know, more towards the best action here, on top of that what we can consider is when doing cardio, especially if you're doing a strength training program, you want to minimize the eccentric loading as much as you possibly can. So eccentric loading, think about when you're going down into a squat, that is the eccentric portion of that. If you have a barbell on your back, You're going down into a squat with 100, 200, 300 pounds on your back. That is a lot of eccentric loading. If you're doing a bicep curl on the way down, that is eccentric loading. Typically speaking, that is where a lot of damage happens to the muscle in particular, the muscle fibers in particular. So when doing cardio, typically speaking, we want to minimize the amount of damage you are putting on your muscles because, again, If you are following a strength training program, which if you're not, I don't know why, excuse me, please start following a strength training program. We wanna minimize the eccentric loading so then that way your muscles can actually promote recovery, not damage your muscles that much more. And then when you go into your strength training sessions, well then, again, now you're just damaging muscles throughout the entire week that can never recover, so on and so forth, right? So we typically speaking wanna minimize the eccentric loading and my 3 top favorite things for this are going to be Again, walking because it's so low intensity, it's so steady state, it's not high intensity, it's not like running where every single step you take you're running and having this higher intensity and smashing your knees and smashing your muscles. That would be a lot of eccentric load in there, but walking is very, very, very not that. So walking, number 1. Sled pushes, number 2. So if your gym has a sled push, a sled on there. Pushing the sled can be a great concentric, not eccentric form of cardio, and I think it's one of the more fun forms of cardio. Like, sometimes I just get bored walking, and so I enjoy sled pushes or the Assault Bike. So those 3 things right there are, typically speaking, my top 3 favorite pieces of equipment when it comes to cardio. Also as well for the Assault Bike, I like that because let's say, for example, it's freezing cold outside, like right now when I'm filming this, it's the beginning It's the end of October, beginning of November, and it's starting to get a little chilly out there. So if you wanna get some forms of cardio in that doesn't require you to go outside and walk, an Assault Bike is a great way to do that. And again, it's not eccentric loaded, so it's very concentric. So it's a lot of just, like, again, you're pushing, but pushing just means you're kind of pushing blood, those kind of things, promoting recovery. And again, not very high intensity. So those are typically speaking the best pieces of equipment. I also enjoy To an extent, the rower. I like the rower. I'm not a big fan of like those elliptical things. I just don't. I think they're very, very boring. And again, eccentric loading, that kind of stuff. And so that's all I'd say for pieces of cardio. I'm not a huge fan of the stair stepper either because again, it's eccentric loading. So it's like, again, people just go in there and they think they're gonna grow their glutes by doing a stair stepper. I'm rambling right now. So we will end this video right here. I hope this video was helpful for you. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop them below. But again, Typically speaking, non-fasted, LISS cardio, and again, either walking, assault bike, or the sled push, those are your, you know, kinda top 3 things, top 4 things when it comes to cardio for fat loss. But remember, please remember, for fat loss, a calorie deficit is the only way to lose body fat, alright?
