Lose Fat Fast - Which Is Better? HIIT vs Cardio

Hello Health Champions. Everybody wants to lose fat fast. They want to drop the

weight quickly and exercise is certainly a good add-on to make that happen but

which is better? Should you do a high-intensity interval training or

should you do a steady-state cardio? Coming right up. Hey I'm Dr. Ekberg. I'm a

holistic doctor and a former Olympic decathlete and if you want to truly

master health by understanding how the body really works make sure you

subscribe and hit that notification bell so you don't miss anything. So first of

all I want to remind everybody why we really exercise it's for brain

activation for hormone balance improved circulation anti-aging benefits better

balance physical fitness coordination better quality of life overall and as

we're going to talk about in this video of course fat burning now some people

would put calories on that list but that's just kind of so silly we're just

and cross them off and talk about the stuff that really matters what do we

mean when we talk about HIIT versus cardio HIIT is high-intensity interval

training and high-intensity means you get your heart rate up above 90 percent

of your maximum if you're not really fit you don't want to start there you want

to work your way up to that and interval training simply means we have short

bursts of intense activity mixed with periods of rest and recovery and when

the intensity is that high then we can only keep it up for seconds people often

mean the same thing when they talk about cardio or aerobics and what this means

is we have a medium intensity it is a lot lower than the 90 percent somewhere

around 70 percent give or take some people can push it up a little bit more

and oftentimes we talk about cardio as a steady state so if you did something

like a spin class even though you might have variations you

might have higher or lower intensity within the workout you're not having

longer periods of complete recovery like we do in the high intensity and

because it is a lower intensity or a medium intensity we can keep it up

longer this one we just would fall down if we try to go longer than seconds but

here we can actually keep it up for 30 to 60 minutes so which one is better for

fat loss well it depends let's first understand what's happening at different

levels of exercise so if you're 40 years old as an example then your maximum

heart rate would be 220 minus your age or 180 so then you just put in whatever

age you have and you come up with a number and that's a good rule of thumb

it's not going to be exact you might be 10 or 15 or 20 points higher or lower

but it will give you a good idea then your heart rate your full range of

possible heart rates would be all the way from resting up to maximum heart

rate and you would be on a continuum from aerobic to anaerobic and aerobic

means that you are doing the exercise with air that you're breathing and the

oxygen provided is enough to completely burn the fuel and provide energy for the

activity when you have a more intense activity then the oxygen is no longer

enough you can't breathe fast enough to supply all of the energy needed and then

you switch into the anaerobic range and this is where it's really kind of ironic

that people call it aerobics but in effect it's an aerobic so the thing that

we refer to as steady-state cardio or aerobics we don't really think that

we're working out until we get into that range where we're huffing and puffing

we go to class and we warm up and we think it starts that it starts having

effect when we start getting tired and panting and sweating and by that time

we're not doing aerobics anymore we have switched right and there's nothing

necessarily wrong with that we'll talk about the different nuances but just

remember that aerobics are not aerobic so what are some examples of these

different activity levels well aerobic activity would include

walking and slow biking and rollerblading so as long as you did

these at a moderate pace without huffing and puffing they would be purely aerobic

but you could also do any of these at a faster pace so if you push yourself and

you walk faster or bike faster now you could turn them into an anserobic activity

and also anything that you typically go to a class for like a step class or a

spin class etc those would qualify for anaerobic most of the time because

you're probably going to get into the huffing and puffing when you do them

also any competitive sport any team sport where you keep it up for 30 60 90

minutes would also be in the anaerobic range primarily and HIIT, high intensity

interval training are things like sprints or running up the stairs in a stadium or

doing burpies activities that you couldn't keep up very long at all

next we want to understand the two sources of fuel the body has and how

they change depending on activity if you do a low intensity aerobic activity

you'll be using mostly fat and that's especially true if your fat adapted if

you are carb dependent or if you recently had a lot of starch or sugar

then you're going to shift that balance toward the glucose but an aerobic

activity is still primarily a fat-burning activity now once we get

into cardio or aerobics which like we said

actually anaerobic things are gonna change but sometimes we're a little

sloppy with language and we say that the body switches from burning fat to burning

carbs and that's not really what happens because we're still gonna maintain our

basic aerobic fuel burning all right but once we get up to our aerobic

threshold once we get up to the limit that we can supply with oxygen it

doesn't mean that we stop using our aerobic base it just means that we have

to add another fuel source so now we still burn the fat but we have to burn

more glucose in addition so glucose becomes the dominant fuel and the same

thing obviously holds true for high-intensity interval training that

the more intense it is the more glucose we have to add on the faster we have to

burn through the glucose so that glucose becomes even more dominant but fat is

still there as the aerobic base the next really important key to understand is

that the type of exercise will impact the hormones and hormones impact fat

burning or fat storing and the two hormones in question are human growth

hormone and cortisol and we think of human growth hormone as something good

and cortisol as something bad in this context now both of them obviously are

produced at the right time in the right amount but we want to find something

that maximizes the benefits so when we do aerobic training then there is a

small impact not much but it's more than if you're sitting on the couch then the

more intense the exercise becomes the more growth hormone we make so anaerobic

training when you push yourself when you get tired and you sweat there is more

potential for fitness there is more challenge to the body but with high

intensity when you push your limits then the growth hormone goes through the roof

can make as much as 700% more growth hormone from even short bursts of

high-intensity training and what happens to the cortisol well it also goes up

accordingly but with aerobic training there is very little need to make more

cortisol because the energy is provided from oxygen and burning fat so we don't

have to have more blood sugar to support this activity so therefore there's a

very very small amount of cortisol produced but as soon as we cross into

that anaerobic range we need another fuel source and the body has to start

making more blood sugar and obviously with HIIT then we're gonna make even

more because we're burning through that glucose even faster but here's the key

to understand that the high intensity interval training is such short bursts

of activity that we might only keep it up for two to three minutes even if the

workout lasts 5 or 10 or 15 minutes the intense bursts only add up to about 2 to

3 minutes so when we multiply that by the time the total impact is actually

very small on the other hand this size arrow has to be multiplied by the 30-40

minutes or more that we sustained that activity and during that longer time we

actually make a whole bunch of cortisol and the adrenals have to work really

hard because it's a long time to do that so if you understand this correctly then

you see that we want to optimize the human growth hormone and minimize the

cortisol so both the high intensity and the aerobic training does that but the

end aerobic sustained activity doesn't do that so whether we do this for health

benefits or whether we do it for fat-burning the outcome is the same but

it's also going to depend on who does this it's going to be more or

less beneficial or detrimental depending on who you are so in scenario number one

we have a 40 year old guy and I keep the 40 years just because he keeps my

numbers the same but you can change it out depending on your age so let's say

this is a lean person he's fit he's been working out all of his life he played

sports in college and he never stopped keeping in shape

he has healthy adrenals he doesn't eat junk food it takes good care of himself

and he probably doesn't have a whole lot of fat to lose but he's got a little bit

extra because he hasn't been totally perfect and his goals are health and

fitness and to get a six-pack by summer now the thing to understand about this

person is that he or she has a high adaptability a high limit high reserve

so that means you can push this body quite a bit without exceeding any limits

without breaking anything down so if this person wanted to do some aerobic

training and anaerobic training and some high intensity training to add on some

growth hormone they could fit all of that in and not exceed capacity not to

break the body down they still want to be smart and have some periods of

recovery obviously but if they wanted to do anaerobic training if they want to

do spin class or play tennis or whatever three times a week then they can do that

and still stay healthy and still maintain a healthy metabolism but in

another scenario if we look at someone who's the same age but they have a good

amount of belly fat they did not keep in shape for the last 20 years but instead

they watch TV and played video games and ate junk food and worked on their career

and drank a lot of coffee so now they have worn out their adrenals a bit this

is a completely different situation and and the goals are probably going to be

different they're probably looking primarily for weight loss and fat loss

and hopefully if they've been watching this channel enough

they're also including health as a goal in itself primarily rather than just

weight loss and fat loss but this person in contrast has a low level of

adaptability their body can't handle that much they have low limits and low

reserves so the activity that the first person was fine with it would break

through the limits it would exceed threshold of what's healthy and they

would start breaking their body down instead

therefore this person would want to focus on aerobic activity they could do

as much or more aerobic activity low level activity remember no huffing and

puffing they could do that three to five times a week for as long as they wanted

to 60 to 90 minutes still obviously within the levels of their fitness if

you haven't moved in years you may not want to go on a 90 minute hike every day

you work up to it they also want to do some high-intensity interval training

but again if you're not fit you don't want to start trying to push your body

up to a hundred and eighty you still are gonna be in a high intensity at a lower

level but you do it twice a week for just a few minutes and as you get more

fit you gradually push this level of high intensity up toward your maximum

and if you really really love some sort of sports some sort of anaerobic

activity you can probably fit it in but I would keep it at a easier level and I

wouldn't do it more than once a week for maybe 20 minutes right and these are not

hard and fast rules but I'm trying to give you the idea that what's healthy

for one person is not going to be healthy for another so what about the

ever-popular boot camp all the people who they find themselves in middle-age

and they haven't been taking care of themselves and now all of a sudden

they're gonna fix everything in a short period of time so they go to the gym and

they sign up for boot and they get a personal trainer who's

going to try to whip them into shape and this is not the right solution because

typically that bootcamp is going to put them all into the end aerobic activity

and they're gonna stress their body more than what is good for it and they're

gonna actually start breaking their body down what about the fat burning well in

both high intensity and cardio you'll probably burn similar amounts of fat

during the exercise you might even burn more in the cardio because it has longer

duration but what's more important is to understand how does this affect you long

term what's happening in the days after the workout

so with high-intensity interval training you're getting and boost in growth

hormone that even though the boost may not stay super high for days it still

has positive impact on your body for days after increasing metabolism

increasing fat burning and because you control the cortisol because the

duration is so short you're gonna have limited cortisol and limited insulin

responses you're not gonna push either one of these up and you're gonna be

working your body in a way that allows it more health more balance more

homeostasis you're not gonna push it in a way that it can't find its way back to

balance and what happens with cardio in the days after well if you're healthy

like scenario one then yes you can still stay in a healthy state of fat-burning

it probably won't be optimal you can probably still get better benefits by

focusing more on high intensity and low level and do less of the cardio but you

can still get away with it you can still be healthy however if you have insulin

resistance and you have weak adrenals now you're going to be pushing the

cortisol beyond what you handle you're gonna create insulin

resistance you're gonna probably add to the belly fat that you already have and

you'll be pushing your body away from health you'll be decreasing health and

you could even affect your fat burning in a negative way so hopefully by now

you're looking for fat loss health fitness and good hormones all together

and then you want to focus on aerobic you want to do the vast majority hours

over here and seconds to a few minutes over here and then if you're also fit

and you have high reserves and you have some sport or event and you just love to

do it then add in a little bit of aerobics as well but still I would put

most of my emphasis on aerobic and hit because in my opinion in my experience

then you're looking for this and you want to maximize growth hormone and

minimize cortisol another way of thinking about exercise and what's

really natural for us is to watch kids and dogs right they're gonna go running

as fast as they can to pick up something you throw them a ball and they run as

fast as they can and they run back with it and you throw it again and they run

as fast as they can they come back and then what happens when they're tired is

they stop you throw the ball and they're not interesting anymore same thing with

the kid they're gonna go run and say hey look how fast I can go but they'll only

do it as long as it's fun they're not going to get on a track and go 45

minutes around the track they might say hey look what I can do just like dad but

after 2 minutes they're tired and they stop so that's how exercise should be it

should be play it should be fun and we're designed to go intense and then

stop and rest if you enjoyed this video and you'd like to learn more about

health and how the body really works make sure you check out that video next

thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next time