Two-A-Days?

[Tarheel23]

Hello everyone,

I am just wondering the practicality of two-a-day running? Once in the morning and once at night. Will it make me lose weight much faster? Or not?

[WendyB]

It is more about what you eat than exercise. So no it will not help you lose weight faster.

[slmaiden]

I've read that cardio for 45 min straight will burn more fat (after the 30 min mark) than breaking it up into smaller segments because the longer time starts to dip into your fat stores. That being said, obviously the more calories you burn the faster you will lose weight, but you also don't want to overdo it and injure yourself. If you have to break it up because of time constraints, go for it, but otherwise I would stick to one longer workout or run (doesn't mean you have to run the entire thing, intervals can be great, too!). Just a suggestion!

[Fit4Ever0112]

I actually do two a days myself. I am a full-time working Mom and a full-time wife  I can't really dedicate two hours of exercise away from my family, so I break them out in two hour increments. Now, some may say, "TWO HOURS, ARE YOU CRAZY?". I have a VERY sedentary job, in fact, I have tested how limited my activity level is and I sometimes will get fewer then 4000 steps a during a work day. I am 28 years old and know I am way more athletic then my professional lifestyle. Soooo, I compensate for my limited activity, by adding two hours of VAM to it. I feel wonderful, energised and a whole lot healthier. I hope my response helps. 

Best of luck. Remember, its your life and no one should judge you or say to do less. Always do more and listen to your body!!!

[Maverick494]

In my opinion if you are going to do Two-a-days you should not do the same thing for both sessions.  You should break it up and if you Run in the AM maybe Swim or do cross-fit or some other kind of HIIT in the PM.  At some point you are going pleateu again, which I suspect is what you are trying to combat.

Even more to that point, maybe instead of just running every day you need to break it up and change what you do for a few weeks with HIIT, Cross-fit, or some other form of muscle confusion.  Two-a-days may not be the solution.

[gerrymcd]

For a while I was working out twice a day.....  (2 x 45 mins rather than 1 x 60 mins).  I lost weight much faster, but then again I was doing a fair bit more exercise every week.  

[Heybales]

No, not if you are using the tool correctly. Some tools used wrong just don't do the job, but sometimes using a tool wrong can hurt you or what is being worked on (your body in this case).

Diet is for weight loss - done right just fat loss, done wrong some muscle mass too.

Exercise is for heart health and body improvements - done right can help fat loss, done wrong can help muscle mass loss.

If your eating goal is reasonable deficit for losing weight weekly, but it's so low because you are short that you find it hard to be compliant eating that little, but you still want to lose that much weekly, then you can indeed exercise more, which raises your eating level, while keeping your deficit the same.

If you are thinking the more exercise will help lose faster by creating a bigger deficit, then why not just stop eating until the weight is gone?

Whatever reasons for not doing that popped in to mind, plus some others you aren't aware of, will still happen if you create too big of a deficit, eventually.

Besides, in a diet your recovery from exercise is impaired anyway, just adding more exercise to create more deficit is just asking for problems.

More is rarely better in a diet, in fact more usually requires doing things really smart and thought out or getting negative results from the extra effort.