Q: Hi Mike.When doing diet to lose some fat can i do some cardio in order to burn lets say 250 calories and eat 250 calories more?Can i do the opposite?In other words should i count the calories from cardio to my diet?I have been told that in order to lose fat its better to do both.But if i lose 250 calories from cardio and 250 from eating less calories(250+250=500!)then i will lose more than one pound a week.What i should do?Should i count cardio or not in my daily calories?

A: My recommendation is to not add/subtract daily calories, but instead eat basically the same every day, pick you training program (both weights and cardio) and just monitor your weight. Then you adjust the daily amount according to how your weight changes. I explain it in http://www.mikesfitness.com/content/calories-to-lose-fat : if over time you find that you lose weight too quickly then you slightly increase how much you eat daily and if you don't lose weight fast enough then you decrease it. This way you don't need to worry about keeping track of your daily calories and cardio. This is both practical (no need to adjust diet daily) and actually makes sense because your body is a very complex system and exercise you do one day will have metabolic effect in the following days.