The Cardio Free Diet - Personal Trainer Community - Forum

[Christina]

Jim Karas and his book seem to be popping up all over the place. Has anyone else seen this? He claims on his website "The Cardio-Free Diet is a revolutionary four-phase program that emphasizes interval strength training to boost your metabolism; build lean, sexy muscles; and achieve all the same heart-healthy benefits of pure cardio workouts. In just twenty minutes a day, three days a week, you’ll look and feel noticeably slimmer, stronger, and younger than ever before."

The red flag for me is "the same heart-healthy benefits of pure cardio workouts." This goes against everything that I have learned in my classes as well as the research/teachings of the ACSM and NSCA. Jim Karas is really advocating that you should not do ANY FORM of cardio? Strength training can REPLACE cardio?!? I really hope not!

Check this out and scroll down and read the FAQs:
http://www.jimkaras.com/cardiofreedi...#cardiofreefaq

Hopefully I'm just missing something here by not reading the book. By the way, I looked at his bio and he is a graduate of the Wharton School of Business. I don't see anything about any kind of formal education in exercise science and/or a top tier (or bottom tier for that matter) personal training certification. However, he does require that personal trainers seeking jobs at his studios have a 4 year degree in a health-related field or a certification from ACSM, NSCA, ACE or NASM so perhaps he doesn't have all of his education listed in his bio. (?) I didn't realize graduating from the Wharton School of Business made you a fitness expert! :lol:

Thoughts?

[Joe Cannon MS CSCS]

Yes I saw his no cardio diet book profiled on 20/20 last week. It looks to me like a low calorie diet coupled with slow-movement resistance training. While I don’t doubt that the lack of calories will produce weight loss, his book goes against most medical/health experts (including the ACSM) that aerobic exercise helps reduce the risk of heart disease.

When the author was asked point blank on 20/20 what evidence he has to support his idea, he admitted he had no peer-reviewed evidence and bases his ideas on how he and how his clients have responded.

The book appears to be just a low calorie diet. Weight lifting will help one retain muscle while dieting how only weight lifting can reduce heart disease long term needs more study. While short term its probably safe for most healthy people, I don’t recommend people only resistance train long term when trying to lose weight.

[Christina]

Do you know what the sad thing is? We have to go behind Jim Karas and clean up his mess by telling clients, "Yes, you DO need to perform cardio for heart health" while he's laughing all the way to the bank. Very frustrating.

[Joe Cannon MS CSCS]

Yes I know it sad. Its all marketing hype unfortunately. I know for a fact that I wrote the best , most honest book on supplemetns in America today but because I dont have a titalating title I doubt I'll get my book on 20/20 (although I did send t John Stossel of 20/20 a book!).

By the way, I didnt know that the author had no fitness degree - thanks for the ammo when Im asked about him!

Joe

[Christina]

And another thing... His bio states, "...every opinion that he voices has been researched by his staff in Chicago and actually applied with his training clients. Jim believes that you can’t give advice until you have done the research..."

First of all, where's the research for The Cardio Free Diet? Secondly, why does "every opinion that he voices" need to be researched by his staff? If the author has studied and understands exercise physiology he doesn't need his staff to research his opinions!

[Joe Cannon MS CSCS]

Yes, once again they have carefully chosen their words to make it seem like there is peer-reviewed clinical research to back up what the book says. Its marketing hype. The word that I keep seeing over and over again is “works” the word “works” is very general and by itself doesn’t mean anything. That’s capitalism! We are all capitalists (especially if we are self employed like us) but its sad when people have to resort to cloudy ways and hype rather than facts.

[rbd]

I wouldn't say he is completely off on the so called health benefits of steady state. More and more research is showing the health benefits of anaerobic work, as well as some detrimental health benefits of long steady state work, even by the famous Kenneth Cooper "Father of Aerobics" He is not the only person in the industry that does not use steady state work greatly for fat loss - most well known guys do not because it flat out does not work as well as interval training and resistance training. There are some good studies (can't think of the ones off the top of my head) showing interval training out performs steady state training all the time and none the other way around. Even some of the health benefits of so called aerobic training were actually anaerobic studies. I am not saying the aerobic exercise (I hate the term) does not have merit, but I do think it has been overblown and overutilized in some instances and has painted a incorrect picture for most individuals.

My two cents!!

[Joe Cannon MS CSCS]

Basicallky we are saying the same thing. everything has merrit. cardio and strength. I often say strength training is the fountain of youth and many studies attest to this. One just cant rely on it for everything. there are bennefits from cardio one doesnt optimally get from strength training and vice versa. both have their place. I think the notion of the "cardio free" diet is mostly marketing hype to sell books. hopefully the book does contain some cardio some cardio.

Speaking of hype, I see Keven Trudeau ("natural cures" book fame) has a diet book out. anyone read it? I glanced through it last week. looks like hes advocating HGH injections for weight loss.