If you’re spending hours at the gym on the treadmill, attending back-to-back boot camps each week or simply pushing yourself to sweat as much and as often as possible and STILL aren’t seeing the results you’d hoped for, you may need to ask yourself — How Much Cardio Is Too Much?

According to today’s guest, Leslie Ann Quillen — host of the podcast Get To The Point with Leslie Ann and creator of the Fat Loss Lifestyle School, women are overdoing it in the cardio arena while failing to understand the importance of slowing down, stressing less and simply picking up heavy weights. In this episode we discuss:

• How overtraining our bodies through cardio-based exercises can lead to bodies that are stressed out (even if we don’t “feel” stressed out while enjoying the endorphin high)
• The age ranges for building muscle and why it’s important to start ASAP lifting weights to age healthfully
• Why “burning calories” shouldn’t be your goal if you’re looking to change body composition, feel stronger and look more fit
• How calories burned through exercise don’t substantially impact our overall daily caloric needs, especially when compared to NEAT (aka non-exercise activity thermogenesis)
• Why overtraining via cardio may lead to intense food cravings and overeating

We close out our discussion with a helpful preview of Leslie Ann’s recommendation for a more balanced approach to fitness that includes daily activity at the base, weight lifting in the middle and cardio at the tip of a pyramid-based visual for understanding how much cardio women should be doing.

I wrap up the show with a discussion on our decision to {finally} give my oldest son a cell phone, the Cell Phone Contract I’ve made available to listeners for free. I also discuss how applications like Verizon’s Smart Family app have helped me minimize the distractions that 24/7 cell phone access can be for a middle schooler.

Season 3 is off to an exciting start with lots more great episodes to come! If you have a show topic you’d like to share with me, please let me know! Thank you for listening, subscribing, downloading and most importantly, thank you for sharing with a friend. ~Regan

This Unmillennial Life is available each week via iTunes, NPROne, Libsyn, iHeartRadio, Spotify and Podcasts on Pandora.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit reganjonesrdn.substack.com