Running might not help you lose weight
The world as we know it is divided between people who run and people who plan to run. It is quite amazing how running has in a very short time become so popular. We all know that one friend who is preparing to run a marathon and is training for it. While running does have a lot of benefits for our overall wellness, here we are going to look at why running might not be the best solution for you, if your objective is to lose weight. But for those of you who primarily rely on running to lose weight, here are a few things you might want to keep in mind, whilst on such a quest:
Counting calories
This is not so much to do with running as any activity or effort to lose weight. Losing weight is at the end of the day a zero-sum game. If you were to spend more energy than you consume you will begin to lose weight. It is as simple as that. And a healthy diet goes a long way in ensuring losing weight. What most people don't realize is that it takes far more energy to stay alive than any workout you are going to do, on any given day. An average human would spend anywhere between 1600-2300 calories more? than any workout, you'll ever do.
Explore fitness studios near you and get trained with best fitness training sessions that suits your body. Get trained with various mindful fitness activities including aerobics, gym workout, functional training, yoga, pilates, mindful meditation, aerial fitness and many more fitness activities to explore!
Timing yourself
When we begin to describe our habit of running most people do so, by stating that they run for 30 mins or 40 mins or so. Running is a cardiovascular workout which means, that your body also burns calories in maintaining a higher tempo of heart rate and breathing and hence the name. So the intensity of doing the running is far more important than how long you do it. The human body is more amazing than what we generally give it credit for, our body quickly gets accustomed to a particular routine, so if you run for 30 mins every day, your body would figure out a way to spend the least possible energy to do this. This is the reason why you would find an instant impact when you start running and then it becomes difficult to see any progress in terms of losing weight. Increasing the intensity and demands of the run in a progressive fashion would ensure steady progress. Connect with Yoactiv workout tracking software to lose weight and feel the burn!
Overtraining
Your body takes time to recover from a moderate to high-intensity run, hence running too hard too often would be detrimental to your health. Running every day for instance is not advisable for everyone (depending on intensity), as there is a chance that you might not meet the calorie requirement for doing so and hence waste muscles instead of burning fat. And muscle wasting has a negative effect on your efforts to lose weight. So remember to pace your runs well.
Complement running
Muscles are important for weight loss. And to simply put it, more muscles help you burn more calories, quicker. But there is something far more important about building muscles (not talking about being a bodybuilder here). Complementing running with weight training and functional training helps you burn calories long after you are done with your workout.
That's why weight training and functional training is oftentimes viewed as better than "just" running for fat loss. Lifting weights impacts your metabolism by causing mini-micro tears that need to be repaired. That healing process requires energy, which means you're burning more calories—a process that can sometimes last for nearly two days after your training session.
So in short, if you are planning to lose weight and run, eat right, aim for high-intensity runs, complement it with weight training and functional training. Finally don't overtrain, be smart about it and you'll have better results.