Don’t do extra cardio if you get fed up. Don’t panic and think that you have to punish yourself. There is a better way to increase fat burning than to starve yourself and exercise too much.

Today I will cover…

1 – What to do when you eat too much

2 – Best Interval Training Workout

3 – Fat Burning for Baby Boomers

Q #1: Is it a good idea to do a lot of cardio if you eat too many calories one day?

Reply:

Thanks for the email.

I don’t like to see exercise as a form of punishment or purge for overeating.

Here are the 2 ways to best approach it:

1) If this happens once a month, it’s not a big deal. Just go about your normal life and stay consistent with your regular training pattern.

2) If this happens once a week, or several times a week, then it is a nutritional behavior problem that needs to be corrected, and excessive exercise is not the answer.

Build your body, don’t beat it.

Q #2: What is the best interval training program to lose fat?

Reply:

No interval method has been proven to be better for fat loss… but of course, intervals have been shown to be better than regular cardio for fast fat loss.

So using a variety of intervals to lose fat is like using a variety of rep ranges for muscle growth. That is what I prefer.

That way, you train the metabolism of your muscles into three different energy systems and put your body into the ultimate fat-burning turbulence. This ensures that you will maximize your metabolism, while burning more calories, and both carbs and fat, during and after training. So forget about the myth of the HR zone for fat loss. It is all the intensity of the intervals.

Q #3: Craig, I started your beginner fat burning workout several weeks ago (I’ll finish all four weeks this week and then plan to move into the 4 week advanced fat burning workout).

In the last 14 months I have lost 85 pounds. Included in the weight loss period, I started walking almost every day and progressed to body weight exercises and running hills in addition to walking. He has worked with dumbbells from time to time. I’ve made some decent progress. I need to continue to lose 20-30 more pounds. All this is a background.

My question is that I’ve been reading about people in their 50s (I’m 49) who need more recovery time between workouts. I feel good doing the turbulence training workout, just reaching out to see if you have anything to suggest to someone my age doing these workouts. I think I’m fine doing the 3 times a week because the intensity is high, but the duration is not high.

Any ideas would be helpful. I just want to continue with something that I can stick with for the long haul.

Reply:

Thanks for the email. Wonderful progress, congratulations.

It seems everything is right. Fortunately, fat burning workouts are designed to give you more recovery than traditional 5 days a week body part training workouts. Use rest days for recovery methods (walking the dog, walking through his roams, etc.).

Every two months take a week off, do some high intensity, low volume training, and do a few different things to improve your recovery.

Keep up the good work!