Q: I've lost 4 pounds in the last month jogging at around 5.7 mph on a treadmill. I did this for 25 minutes 3 to 4 times a week.previously I was doing less intense cardio for an hour a day and I was not losing any weight even though the total calories yielded were more than the jogging .It seems that doing cardio thats very difficult for a short time is much more beneficial than doing cardio that is relatively easy for hours and hours.I have stopped losing weight now so I guess I have to increase my jogging speed and not increase the duration.

A: It's possible that more intense cardio could have this effect. Though you'd burn the same amount of calories with short intense cardio or long light cardio, your muscles would be under higher stress during the more intense cardio. Higher stress creates actual physical damage in your muscles which your body then 'repairs'. That muscle repair process is a very powerful fat burner. In fact, this process is why I always recommend including weight training as part of any fat-loss program -- heavy whole-body weight training will stress your muscles which will force your body to spend many many calories repairing them while you just go about your daily life. Check out my fat-loss article if you're interested.