Lots of opinion about running and weight loss, and running nutrition. I thought this was among the interesting parts:
“The afterburn effect, scientifically known as Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC), is key to how running contributes to weight loss. It refers to the additional calories your body burns after exercise, even when you’re at rest. Yup. You read that right. The calories you burn from running continue on after you are done pounding the pavement or trail. This is one reason running is different and better than many other forms of exercise when it comes to shedding weight and keeping it off.”
I lost 70 lbs. It was mainly due to cleaning up my diet. Running is important for health, but the mistake i so often see from people who are trying to lose weight is that they don’t change their diet, run way way too hard, then they feel miserable, their willpower runs out, and they give up.
I started out run-walking with a heart rate monitor, keeping my heart below zone 3, and it turns out i really love running. I eventually took the running too far and started running ultramarathons.
It’s never that simple. We also get more hungry and want to eat more, as a result of the increased energy burn
Sure it increases your calorie expenditure like any activity, but it can be rather miniscule compared to the amount of control you get by limiting the intake. But you’ll get stronger muscles including the heart which make you burn even more energy even passively. But you’ll get hungrier, it’s inevitable in either case.
Lift weights to burn fat, cardio is for the heart. Increasing muscle mass will do far more to cause your body to burn fat, and raise metabolism over longer periods of time.
Cardio. Heart and blood pressure Weights. Burn fat
Even more important, the most important, eat healthy, eat properly. Never go on a diet, change your diet, which means change your lifestyle. I’m down 38 pounds since Xmas last year. I lift on and off, mostly, I eat better. I still drink more beer than I should or I’d be lower. Americans eat 3-5 times the amount of protein we need, and not enough veggies. I eat a big and I mean big salad for lunch. Small dinner. Drink nothing but coffee water and beer.
Weight loss only occurs when you burn more calories than you intake. If running helps achieve that then it will cause weight loss.
As other have said running will burn calories, but you can’t out run your diet. One thing to note on typical restricted diets for every 6 lbs of fat you’ll lose 1 lb of muscle. The muscle loss will lower your base metabolic rate, that’s the cause of the plateau many experience. There have been some studies that have shown that eating 4 or 5 smaller protein heavy meals a day helps minimize muscle loss and leads to better results.
