I’ve been reading the old Appetite for Construction column today, which stated that for fat loss, do 30 mins of cardio after weight train. On non-weight-training days, do cardio in the morning, empty-stomach, and drink Surge immediately after the session.
Then I read the posts from the forum. They were several years old, and some of them contained JB's posts as well as other people from the forum, such as mufasa, etc. JB stated in one of his posts that he did up to 1.5 hrs of cardio a day every day when he was a competitive BB, and he did not believe that it led to muscle wasting cuz he compensated for the cardio with adequate calories and nutrition. (And we all know that JB's ... well... JB) JW stated (that's his ID, just JW in case you guys think that I mis-typed John Berardi's initial) that he did up to 1 hr of cardio every day to lose fat.
The question is how necessary is it to drink Surge if you plan to do moderate to intense cardio for 30+ mins in the morning, empty-stomach if you're aiming for fat loss? I'm not big on cardio right now because I can't seem to recover fast enough when I do cardio on off-days and weight train. I don't do Surge after cardio. Currently I'm not doing HIIT because I always sprint for HIIT, but my physical therapist told me to not sprint until my left knee's better. He OK'd mild jogging on treadmill, elliptical, bicycle, and stairmaster.
I want to lose about 15-20 lbs of fat. I think that doing cardio would be beneficial in burning some calories and taking a serving of Surge afterwards would aid recovery. Or do you think taking a serving of Surge defeats the point of the cardio?
If I were to take a serving of Surge after my cardio-only day, do I treat my cardio as a "training day" and eat 100g of carb per T-Dawg 2.0 guideline or still aim to eat 70 g of carb?
I’d start by taking a postworkout drink after your cardio and see how things go from there. If you’re concerned about carbs you could always take a half serving, then add in some extra protein. Also, considering that cardio really won’t leave you in significant ‘caloric debt’ like weight training will, I’d stick to 70g of Carbs on your cardio-only days.
If you have 15-20 lbs of fat to lose, then you don’t need to use Surge after cardio. Starting your day off with cardio is a great way to increase your metabolism and burn a bunch of calories.
When doing cardio first thing in the morning, I'd take a shower afterwards and then treat the rest of the day as a non-training day. So stick with 70g of carbs and go about your diet as usual.
Stella, could you post your stats? Height, weight, age, number of cals/day? I got the impression from some of your other posts that you’re fairly young, and I find it strange that you’re not recovering well when you add cardio.
BF - 26-28% (I haven't mesured since last summer -- but I didn't think it changed much since I was unable to do anything but work and eat for months)
Calories - ups and downs but estimate it at around 1800-2000/day (OK you may yell at me for not keeping a good food log, but with 2-3 project team celebration dinners/week (!!) hard to keep track of the calories cuz I don't know what hidden fat/butter/oil/carb is in the food I eat; in the process of becoming more anti-social)
Age: 24
My reasons for the lack of recovery would be:
1. Weekly air travel from San Fran to DC. Every Thursday, I take red-eye (that's the night flight in case you're not familiar w/ the term) from San Francisco to DC. My sleep's ruined on Thursday night, and the cabin pressure leaves me very much dehydrated on a 5+ hr flight, and I can't drink enough water. I fly back to San Francisco from DC at 7:20AM Monday morning (need to get up at 5:00 AM to make the flight). The time difference and the flights are very draining for me. Currently I lift on Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri (for about 45-50 mins/session). I vegetate on Wed, Sat, and Sun.
2. Stress level -- my job's too stressful cuz I have two bosses to please -- my managers and my clients. And when the job situation gets tight (as in we have a big deadline), we're talking about working 90 hrs/week non-stop for months. And that's when I stop training cuz I'm too tired to walk much less lift weight. It takes me about a month or so of off-time to recover from the crazy work hours.
3. Mild insomnia -- I'm a very light sleeper and I don't sleep very well. I think the 3 hr time diference contributes to my inability to sleep well at night. I get about 5 hrs of sleep/night, which isn't enough.
So that's why I think I recover so poorly when I start adding several sessions of cardio. But I do want to do some cardio cuz I vegetate too much otherwise, and I noticed that I'm slightly winded when I walk up 8 flights of stairs....so pathetic. :( I never had to use Surge for cardio before (when I didn't have the recovery problems), and I was fine. But now that it's no longer a case I wanted to know if adding Surge would benefit me.
