Im a little confused about the cardio part. I always do cardio first. I always lift better after I do cardio for some reason. You said not to do more then 20 min of cardio, and then do some walking. That doesnt seem like enough cardio to me. I think you need to keep your heart rate up for at least 30-45 min. I do however agree that women should lift heavy weights. I do 3 sets of 12 reps.

Skibunny,

I think it just depends on what you wish to accomplish.

If your desire is to protect your body fat while building endurance, then I imagine cardio followed by weights could accomplish this goal.

But if you would prefer to do LESS work and burn MORE fat while building more muscle (which will raise metbolic rate), then you would do your heavy lifting FIRST, followed by about 20 minutes of moderate cardio.

I don't know what benefit there is in keeping the heart rate up for 30-45 minutes, unless you are doing it before lifting.

If you don't do weights first, your first 15-20 minutes of cardio doesn't burn much fat - that's where you're burning off what exists of your blood sugar. Under these circumstances, if you wanted to get into fat-burning, then yes, you would have to keep going beyond that 20 minutes to accomplish any significant fat burning.

However, if instead you take advantage of your available blood sugar to lift weights (which doesn't work very well WITHOUT blood sugar anyway), then once you finish, you immediately start burning fat once you do cardio since you've used up all your blood sugar. Since you don't have to waste the first 20 minutes of cardio burning off blood sugar, you really only need about 20 minutes to get the same fat-burning as you would if you had done 40 minutes of cardio BEFORE doing your lifting.

I would argue that the 20 minutes post-lifting could actually burn MORE fat than 40 minutes pre-lifting since you can lift so much heavier if you do your weights first.

But again, if your desire is to train longer, preserving energy and burning less fat, then by all means, do your cardio first. Your goals may be more endurance-centred than body-composition-centred.

Me, I'm just lazy. I don't want to work any harder than I absolutely HAVE to to achieve the end result.

KK Back to that Whey Pro... What does putting oil do for you.. I"m gonna try and do the block nose thing but just curious as what it does before i attempt this ..

thanks

I think it would slow down the absorption of the whey. I haven't been doing this, because I'm taking the whey pre-lifting, and I've been eating all day anyway. But if I had to have a whey shake after lifting again, I think I'd have to fatty it up with some olive oil or coconut milk or something.

I'm really digging the cottage cheese, though!

That makes sense, thank you for the info. I will definitely try this new approach when I go to the gym. How many days a week do you work out?

I like to do 4, right now I'm ridiculously busy and doing three. And it may or may not make sense - it's just that I've been stalled for a long time, and I *think* it's moving again. I've stopped weighing myself for a while - I'm using leg fat and how clothes fit for a little while.

I HAD been doing carbs pre-lifting and whey post-lifting (conventional wisdom), but getting nowhere. I rather suspect that a lot of these things work better for the boys than for the girls - testosterone levels and muscle mass, you know the drill. I'm just winging it, but so far, so good.

Fingers crossed...

sorry double post.

I'm trying it with about 1 tbps. Virgin Coconut oil...the shake tastes pretty good.

I also worry that I'm getting in too much cals..cause I workout about an hour and a half after dinner...and then having the shake after my workout I'm afraid I'm getting too many cals to lose weight. I just take it cause I read the protein helps repair muscles faster.

Since you lift after supper, if you are worried about the fat spillover, try having a slightly lighter supper, and saving some of the protein from your dinner for AFTER.

I'm finding that real food digests more slowly, and that seems to be getting me back on track; perhaps sub-optimal for putting on mass, but I suspect better for fat loss.

We shall see...

Here is an article I read today on A.M cardio....

I'd like to see what your opinions are on this?

Here is the link to the article A.M Fat Burn ....when you have the time check it out.

There is an article (and a whole thread ... with great debate ) in the HOT LINKS sticky at the top of the forum.

LoL Dan....I got stuck to this thread...if ya want I can move the post over there? I just think it makes for a interesting read.

Ah found it! Thanks Dan.

I found scientific proof to your theory:

In the November issue of Men's Health the question is raised as to doing aerobic training first, then resistance training for your workout or doing resistance training first, then aerobic.

Their answer is to do resistance first, then aerobic, according to MH. They hooked a "fit guy" up to all of the gizmos used to measure calorie expenditure and if they are fat calories. One day they had him do aerobic then resistance, and a different day do reseistance first, then aerobic. The weight workout consisted of 15 sets, and the aerobic was 20 minutes.

Weights, then aerobic:

Total Calories: 371

Fat Calories: 107

Aerobic, then weights:

Total Calories: 346

Fat Calories: 66

thanks so much for the advice!

Skibunny -

That's WONDERFUL! I know in my bones it had to be right, but it's always so great to see a result that establishes that what I had long suspected, is indeed true.

Bless you. You made my day!