T Nation

Frequency of Conditioning Workouts

#1

Not really sure if this the right category, but it’s close.
I’m wanting to lose fat.
A little background, I’m 46, have lifted for years, but as a lifelong hard gainer, never really paid much attention to diet. Well that has taken its toll on my waistline. I’m finishing the V-Diet tonight, and have dropped about 10 pounds on it. I’m going to be embarking on the “Green faces” diet next, utilizing the ideas of Nate Miyaki here: https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/fat-loss-and-t-man-bullets
I’ll be eating 2,000 calories a day.
My weight is 200, and my electronic scale puts my bodyfat % at 29. That seems a little high, but I would say definitely over 20%.
I’ll be doing the Real Fast Fat Loss program by Alwyn Cosgrove: https://www.t-nation.com/training/real-fast-fat-loss

My question is, can I add in conditioning sessions on my off days without messing with my recovery? If so, for how long and how intense?
I have access to sleds, battle ropes,tires, and kettlebells, so my conditioning options are pretty good.

Any input?

#2

TI hope more experienced lifters and trainers come in, so I’m replying on part to bump this post an an hopefully start some conversation. While I can’t directly entire on your question about the diet specifics plus what sounds like HIIT (given the equipment you list,) I do believe brisk walking is OK on your diet. From personal experience, if you’ve not spent time walking, it’s a severely underrated, low-impact, readily recoverable form of conditioning.

#3

I can only talk from experience OP but for me personally, diet and lifting as the primary mode of fat loss only takes me so far and adding 2 or 3 relatively short cardio sessions in each work works wonders and has really kicked my fat loss back into gear. Talking 20 minutes of steady state treadmill with a few short burst intervals thrown in or 20 minutes on the stairmaster (I also play soccer once per week for an hour but don’t include that for the purposes of the above, an hour of that burns a LOT of calories…).

I’ll let those more experienced and knowledge say for sure but I wonder if you need to increase calories as well as your cardio/conditioning.