HITT did not work for me

RoRoCo · Jul 11, 2005

I was doing 45 minutes of cardio 4 times a week (when I lifted weights) and I jogged about 2 times a week on my off days. I was told I was doing too much cardio, but I was losing weight.

I switched to HITT on the recommendation of this board and in fear that my losses would plateau. I did it strictly...25 minutes sessions 3-4 times a week....with no other cardio.

I went from losing 5 lbs a month on my old routine to only losing 2 pounds in the last two and a half months while on HITT.

I know a lot of you on this board believe HITT is the holy grail of working out...and for you it may be. I just wanted to give a counter point for those of you that are interested.

My thoughts after this experiment are the same as when I started. The key to loosing weight is to burn more calories and to intake less while maintaining a healthy nutritional plan. Although I do believe that a lot of cardio can burn some muscle mass, I feel the fat loss in a high cardio plan outweighs the small loss of muscles I see with HITT.

I have been on my high cardio plan for 2 weeks and I have already seen a loss of 2 pounds.

Just thought I would share for those that care.

ijt · Jul 12, 2005

Just curious...because it doesnt seem to work for me either...what is your plan cardio plan?

newf · Jul 12, 2005

I do whatever suits me that day. Both work but i believe LISS will burn more fat if done for 45 to 60min.

evolution · Jul 12, 2005

A couple of thoughts here-
HIIT actually burns more overall calories than LISS (means more fat burned).

A loss in pounds or weight is not an indication of burning fat.

abear · Jul 12, 2005

right, dont base results on losing weight. base it off losing bodyfat.

the idea of HIIT is to increase your metabolism over the course of the day to burn fat, not to lose total bodyweight. but its true that not everything will work the same for everyone.

RoRoCo, judging by your results you are doing fantastic. whatever you are doing keep it up. results are what matters most of all. good going!!!!

RoRoCo · Jul 13, 2005

This is fat I am losing...I have an electric fat scale and caliphers. The average of the two is going down so I am losing more fat than muscle.

Evo...I am curious about your statement...How does 25 minutes of HITT burn more calories than 45 minutes of LISS? I hear from multiple sources that it does, but I have never seen any data backing that statement up. I am not saying that it is not true...I am just curious.

My cardio routine now is

Monday 45 minutes eliptical no arms or stationary bike (with leg workout)
Tuesday rest
Wednesday 30-45 minute jog
Thursday 45 minute elliptical arms (with shoulder workout)
Friday rest or 30 minute jog
Saturday 45 minute stairmaster (with back workout)
Sunday 45 minute stairmaster or elliptical (with chest workout)

Wash rinse repeat

Fil · Jul 13, 2005

Mmmm, I'm not convinced you burn more calories with HIIT, I'm more convinced that you burn more fat. The idea behind HIIT, or at least what the National Strength and Conditioning Association claims it to be, is that it targets certain energy-producing systems in the body. When you do a 1:1 - 1:3 rest-to-activity ratio, you activate the oxidative system of the body - or the fat-burning system.

Energy for workouts comes from calories created by breaking down nutrients in your body. For most exercise, the primary source of these calories is carbohydrates. The source of these calories is determined by the bioenergetic system of your body in use, and THAT depends on the level/duration of the activity in question.

The oxidative (fat burning) system is used primarily for extremely low intensity activity (your day-to-day routine) and once your carbohydrate stores become limited. When you do HIIT with a 1:1 - 1:3 ratio, your system is shocked, in a manner of speaking, into using the fat-burning energy system BEFORE the carbohydrate energy system. This means you're burning fat right-off-the-bat, whereas otherwise you'd have to exercise for 20 minutes before you really started burning any significant amount of fat.

Of course, HIIT can also be used to target other systems with different rest-to-activity ratios, but the lower the ratio, the more you're targetting fat burning.

One of the major advantages to HIIT is that you can burn fat without burning much muscle, so it's ideal for cutting and general weight loss - whereas with long-endurance workouts (which is what you'd normally do for weight loss if not HIIT) you tend to burn more muscle as your body cannot liberate carbs/fats quickly enough (so it must burn muscle protein for calories).

One downside to HIIT is that you're not getting as great a heart workout, which of course is something you want.

Iffy · Aug 3, 2005

I aternate bewteen LISS & HIIT. I do approx 45 mins (level 15 of 20) on elliptical machine as my LISS and 20 mins (level 10 of 20) jog 45s and sprint for 15s on elliptical machine as my HIIT.

I find that I lose a steady amount of weight each week (normally 1 - 2 pounds, although sometimes nothing or even maybe the odd gain) but feel that my bf% is constantly dropping (although I haven't measured it).

I also lift weights 3/4 times a week and I think this may be why I don't lose a great deal of weight due to muscle development. Also, as the HIIT is more intense, could it be contributing to muscle development also? and thus explaining why the post starter experiened a slow down in weight loss when he/she switched?

As far as calories go, if i do 45 mins on the elliptical at LISS the couter reads about 930 calories burned, if I do 20 mins HIIT the same counter reads 500 calories burned. So, yes in theory, whilst doing HIIT, minute for minute you, do burn more claories, but it is extremely difficult to keep up the pace that HIIT is done at to burn the same amount off as you would when doing a LISS workout. So you actually burn more off doing LISS but the rate which you burn them doing HIIT is far greater.