Does swimming burn fat? Cycling? How about a luxury boot camp in St Lucia? Yep, they are all great for shedding a few pounds , but youll need a pool, a bike or a six-figure salary. If you can afford a pair of running shoes, though, you can run. You can run in the sun. You can run in the rain. You can run in the snow. You can run with a friend. You can run by yourself. You can even run every single day if youre smart about recovery.
This accessibility makes running one of the best ways to lose weight, and boost your fitness and all-round health. However, running for lasting weight loss is more complicated than simply hitting the pavement and hoping the pounds melt away. Heres everything you need to win when running to lose.
Yes, you need to fuel your efforts, but running is not an invitation to the all-you-can-eat buffet afterwards your goal is losing weight. In fact, you could find yourself gaining weight if you over-fuel your runs. Most people overestimate the calories they burn on a run, says coach Angela Rubin. In general, you burn about 100 calories per mile.
Heres the bottom line: if you run three miles, you dont need to refuel with a 400kcal brownie. Weight loss is about creating a caloric imbalance, where youre using slightly more calories than youre consuming, says Dr Daniel OConnor, professor of health and human performance at the University of Houston, US.
To do this, you also need to factor in the number of calories you burn when you are not running, simply to keep your body functioning (cell production, breathing, processing nutrients, circulation etc). This is known as your basal metabolic rate. Bear in mind that people of the same height, weight, and gender can have different basal metabolic rates.
Some are simply born with a more active internal engine, and fitter people tend to have higher BMRs because they have more muscle and less fat. There are various online calculators that will give you a good idea of your BMR. Add to it the calories you burn per day from running and other activities to work out your overall calorie expenditure.
Adding strength-training to your routine is important for many reasons: for a start, it makes you a stronger runner and reduces your risk of injury.Running is only hard on your joints if you dont have the muscle to support them,says Rubin. It also helps you lose weight. The more lean muscle mass you have, the more calories youll burn at rest, she says.
You want a calorie deficit, but nothing too extreme. People often think they need to restricta large number of calories to lose weight, but if youre doing that while running, youre burning the candle at both ends, says sports dietitian Tavierney Rogan. Possible fallout includes injury, burnout and bingeing.
When you cut carbs or skip meals in an effort to drop pounds, youre not giving your bodywhat it needs to avoid muscle breakdown. When you run, you use the glycogen in your muscles. So after a run, you need 40-50g of carbohydrates to replenish glycogen stores thats two to four servings of fruit or complex carbs such as porridge or brown rice. The food isnt going to your gut, either. The carbs you eat after a workout are used by your muscles, says Rogan, not stored as fat. Youll want to also supplement that fuel with some protein for muscle recovery, too.
Cutting too many calories can also trigger a slowdown in your metabolism, as your body responds to the lack of fuel by clicking into starvation mode, making it nearly impossible to maintain weight loss. Instead of slashing calories, aim for a deficit of 200-250 calories a day. That should result in a loss of 300-350g per week, which wont flip the starvation switch.
We can all agree that an early alarm is rarely an appealing prospect, but it could work wonders for your waistline. A study published in the journal Obesity that examined the habits of people who maintained a weight loss of at least 30lb for at least a year, found that those who consistently exercise at the same time of day tend to get about an hour more of exercise each week than those who vary their workout slots. What time of day didnt necessarily matter, but the research found that most consistent exercisers do so inthe early morning hours. Why? The researchers suggest that consistency helps you ingrainthe exercise habit. So if you exercise every morning after you have your coffee, your mind clever thing that it is prepares to get going as you smell the java brewing. Also, early morning maybe the easiest time to build that exercise habit, because its the time when life demands are least likely to derail your plans.
Also, a study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism found those who exercised before eating breakfast burned twice the fat of those who exercised after breakfast. This boosted fat burn may be due to an increased availability of fatty acids, which, among other functions, fuel your cells if glucose isnt available, says Dr Javier Gonzalez, the study author and a lecturer in human and applied physiology at the University of Bath.
If you are heading out on an empty stomach, though, aim for a shorter and easier route, so youll avoid running out of steam halfway through.
A study in Plos One found people who skimped on sleep were more likely to have higher body mass indexes and larger waist circumferences than those who got adequate shut-eye. The good news is, running may help you sleep easier and deeper. Many studies have found that daily aerobic exercise specifically the moderate-to-intense type improves sleep quality. If you run in the evening, make sure you leave enough time before bedtime to let your body temperature and heart rate come down.
All types of running will burn calories and fat, but throwing in some speed in the form of interval or HIIT training will boost your burn. In fact, interval training could help you lose 29 per cent more weight than continuous moderate-intensity running, according to a new meta-analysis of studies, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Interval training seems to change your metabolism, and higher intensity exercise seemsto promote physiological changes that might favour long-term weight loss, explains study co-author Dr Paulo Gentil. In other words, it makes your body more efficient at burning fat.
In even better news, youll still be burning fat even after you finish your run. Running at a high intensity will create an after burn, which is when your body continues to burn calories when youre no longer moving, says Rubin.
Try adding four to six 30-seconds prints to your normal runs a study from the University ofWestern Ontario, Canada, found people who did this lost twice the body fat of those who ran slow and steady. However, as interval training is more taxing on your body, plan two to three days of recovery between sessions.
Dieting is about deprivation. Saying I cant eat this, over and over is awful, says nutritionist Rebecca Scritchfield. And it doesnt work in the long term: Everyone has a weight set point, a range of 10-15lb your body settles into. Dip below that and your brain protects you against further weight loss with hunger-inducing hormones. In a war of brain chemistry against willpower, your brain will win, says Scritchfield.
She urges runners to ditch the obsession with target weights, and to focus on the many other benefits of running, such as improved sleep and increased energy.
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Running for weight loss? Here's how to reach your goals this year - Runner's World (UK)
