Many people start running to lose weight. It is an excellent form of exercise in many ways, but is it actually effective when your aim is to reduce your weight?
The answer lies in what else you do. If you take up running without changing anything else in your life, then yes you might lose weight. But in some cases you might not, just because muscle weighs more than fat. So if you are turning fat into muscle you might remain the same weight. However, you would be slimmer.
The problem that can arise for many people who start running to lose weight is that there is a natural tendency to consume more calories to compensate for the calories burned while running. This is easy to do because the margins are quite small.
A person weighing 150 pounds will burn around 100 calories in a one mile run. All it takes to replace those 100 calories is one 8 oz (240 ml) glass of orange juice. So you need to keep a careful eye on what you are eating and drinking if you plan to lose weight by running.
Another point to keep in mind is that we need to burn off around 3500 calories to lose one pound of weight. So that 150 pound person would need to run 35 miles a week to lose one pound a week, if they did not make any changes to their diet.
From all of this you can see that it is important to focus on diet as well as running to lose weight. Keep a food journal so that you can see how much you actually eat. Then log it all in one of the many online food tracking sites to keep track of your calories.
Yes, this means weighing your food if you want to be accurate, but you will be surprised just how effective this step can be. Even without trying, the effect of logging everything that we eat will often result in eating less. It just makes us think twice about that third or fourth chocolate chip cookie.
As a side note, you can do the same thing if you need to save money. Write down everything you spend and you will be surprised how you suddenly start spending less!
Of course, when you are running to lose weight it is also important to run regularly. Once or twice a week is not going to have much effect on your fitness or weight loss. You need to exercise at least three times a week, and preferably more.
Having said all of that, running is certainly great exercise. It can help you to lose weight if you take care of your diet at the same time. It can also improve your metabolism so that you burn more calories the rest of the day. Of course, it can be stressful on the heart, so if you are not very fit it is best to have your doctor check you out before you start running to lose weight.