What Everyone Needs To Know About Running For Weight Loss

Are you worried about your weight? Do you think your weight might become a problem for you if you don’t do anything about it as early as possible? If you answered yes to all the above questions then you are at the right place. All your worries about losing weight in the simplest way shall be addressed in this article.

You must have already thought about several ways on how you can reduce your weight. These options may include swimming, cycling or even taking a fancy retreat somewhere. However, have you ever thought about running as an effective way of losing weight? Running is also the cheapest way to reduce weight as compared to all the other options that you may consider.

You may be wondering why we are insisting that running is the best option for you as you seek to lose some weight. Besides running being cost-effective, it is also such a natural way of losing weight. If you are a runner, you can always run at any time you feel right for you.

When it comes to running for weight loss, you also need to know that there are some strategies involved in making it successful. So, what do you really need to know so that you can successfully use running as an effective way of losing weight? Here is all you need to be armed with.

1. Have a Concrete Plan

In order to see some positive results from running, you need to have a concrete plan on how to carry it out. It is advisable to always start slow and increase the pace gradually. You can always start by walking because as long as you have the best walking shoes, it is considered less stressful on the muscles, joints and bones as compared to running.

However, walking can be stressful enough to stimulate the adaptations required to make these areas more resilient and stronger. By doing this, you will have prepared your body for the strenuous runs.

What’s more, it is important never to give up running daily as soon as you get started. This is because the joints, muscles and bones all need some time to recover faster and adapt to the stress associated with running. It is, therefore, advisable to run on a daily basis for the first weeks of your running program. You do not necessarily need to overdo it though as doing so could be so dangerous for you.

For those wishing to exercise somehow more frequently, you can do non-impact workouts that may include cycling among others in between the run days. You can also do walks as those are known to help a great deal too. After getting your body used to the routine then you can now gradually increase the distance you cover. Doing less number of miles as you increase gradually will help you realize better results as compared to making a huge change at once.

2. Choose Your Diet Carefully

The benefits that one can access from running are so many and weight loss is just one of them. However, it is not advisable to ignore your diet at whatever cost simply because you are trying to lose some weight. As a matter of fact, it is not strange to find that you may be gaining some weight in the event that you decided to eat too much before running.

Most people have been known to overestimate the number of calories they burn when they run. An estimation research established that most people burn about 100 calories for every mile covered. This means that a person who runs 2 miles or 3 miles will burn about 200 to about 300 calories when doing a solid workout.

Most people will, however, burn such calories and after that eat some junk food like pizza and end up adding another like 400 calories after burning 300 calories. This is like making one step ahead and two steps backward which in the end lead someone nowhere.

In as much we may have some serious craving for some types of foods after running; we must always keep our indulgence in control so that we can achieve our ultimate goal of losing weight.

3. Make Sure You Strength Train

There are so many reasons why cross training may be important for anyone who is thinking of losing weight by running. By strength training, you will most likely become stronger and reduce any risks of getting any injuries and this is why it is considered to be a running safety.

There are some scientists out there who argue that running could only be hard on the joints for those individuals with less muscle to support the joints. Lifting will also help an individual in losing weight besides the actual running itself. This is because it has been discovered that if one has more lean muscles then he will burn more calories when resting.

Doctors argue that having more muscle translates to having more calories burned when one is just idling around or just resting. Again it is also quite crucial to bear in mind that running does not only help in losing weight but losing fat too. Studies have proved that running also helps in burning fats, especially in the abdominal area.

However, if you decide to combine strength training with running, you will be in a position to burn more total fat. This is known to increase the resting metabolism and hence preventing the loss of muscle mass that may result from running alone.

4. Set a Specific Weight Target

This is one of the most important things that you must keep in your mind when relying on running as a way to help you lose weight. You need to have a specific plan and know what your ultimate weight goal is. The moment you reach your target weight then you can be sure that you are making some progress.

It is important to make the weight targets step by step and not just jump to an outrageous target that will require you to strain so much to meet. This should go beyond just your overall weight loss and should include some body measurements and body fat targets to keep you motivated.

This means that you could perhaps decide to invest in things like a tape measure and even an accurate scale that will help in measuring your body fat. All these will help you in meeting your target weight and other body measurements that should be kept in check as well.

5. Incorporate High Intensity

There are several studies that have shown that (HIIT) high-intensity interval training is a somehow faster way of shedding fat. According to the American College of Sports Medicine, HIIT has been confirmed to promote the rate at which one loses body weight and abdominal fat while at the same time maintaining muscle mass.

This, however, does not mean that you should make all your runs to be interval runs, but you can consider adding at least a single HIIT session every week. For individuals who prefer longer and somehow relaxed runs then it is wise to consider trying something like CrossFit. High intensity will make sure that you are always prepared for every run that you should undertake.

This will, in turn, result in a faster way of losing weight as a result of running. So in general when it comes to running for weight loss, there are so many things that we need to consider.

Conclusion

While it is true that there are several ways of losing weight, there is one old school way of doing it which is safe, natural and will always stand the test of time and that is running. There are so many reasons why all these artificial ways of losing weight will never replace running any time soon.

Running is cheap and less complex, you just need to get some things right to achieve your desired results. We believe that this article has provided everything you need to know about running and weight loss. As long as you abide by the rules and instructions provided above then you can be sure that you will reap the full benefits that running provides in as far as weight loss is concerned.

We hope that you will succeed in your dream of losing weight in the old school way by running.