Very true…good point. To add to that. When you are taking in such a small amount of calories your body will start to take the little food you have and store it as fat…sort of like survival mode. So in short “starving” yourself is not the best/healthiest way to go. Then you add that to doing high amount of cardio, which you not only lose fat but lean body mass (muscle) as well. Add those two together and sure you will lose weight but you will not look that great.
There are studies that compare people doing cardio for 45 min - 1 hour and lifting weights 45 min -1 hour (doing the bigger exercises, compound movements). The people doing cardio did burn more calories while working out…but not that much more, but tracking how many calories they burned 48 hours later the people who lifted weights burned 700 more calories. Basically when you lift correctly your body will not only build more muscle but will burn more calories after when you are not working out. Just some good info to know when one wants to drop some weight…the first thing people think of to do is reduce their calories way below how much they should be eating and jump on the treadmill for an hour each day…when in reality if they reduce their calories to a healthy deficit (5 meals/day) and have a solid lifting routine in the long run they will be way better off. Another thing one can add to speed up the process is HIIT where studies have shown…mostly fat is burned, muscles are built, and you continue to burn calories even after you are done.