Friday, 02 October 2020 00:00

Here’s Why Your Running isn’t Causing Weight Loss

Here’s Why Your Running isn’t Causing Weight Loss

Running for weight loss is often viewed as a tremendously good idea. It’s great cardio and, therefore, fantastic for fat burning, right? Unfortunately, it’s not quite that straightforward. There are many factors that determine whether or not you will shed extra weight. Typically speaking, exercising alone – just going out for a run a few times per week – isn’t usually enough. Running is no Adipex pill.

Why Running isn’t Your Adipex Pill Weight Loss Solution

When you build your way up to running, you may think that you'll be giving yourself a considerable advantage not only in toning your muscles and enhancing your fitness level, but also in losing weight. However, that may not necessarily be the case. It's fantastic cardio, certainly, but many runners find that they just don't lose weight the way they'd been expecting, especially when they consider the calorie burn they have been achieving according to their fitness trackers.

This can be a very frustrating experience. After all it takes a lot of work to start running and to keep it up. After putting in all that effort, it's natural to want results with your weight as well as your progress in the sport.

There could be several reasons for this. The first is that you may actually be losing fat but because you're building muscle, your body is changing its composition, causing it to weight the same even though it is healthier and carries less fat overall.

What Else Should You Know About Exercise and Body Fat Burning?

However, there could be other reasons your run isn't letting you lose weight. Here are a few that you might want to consider:

  • You always do the same run – If you've been running the exact same route or the same setting on your treadmill, you may actually have reached the point that you're not really challenging your body anymore. Even though you're still going through the motions and you're still breaking a sweat, the specific muscles you need to complete your run will have built up and will need to burn through fewer calories and stored fats in order to achieve the same performance. Shake things up by changing your route, boosting your intensity or testing out some interval training that will keep your muscles guessing.
  • You keep lengthening your route without speeding up – If you lengthen your run to keep up with your fitness level, you're definitely helping yourself to a certain degree, but if you're not making any changes to your speed then you're missing out on a massive part of your potential. Intensity is one of the key components of any exercise, whether it's cardio, strength training or anything else. Therefore, regardless of whether you run for twenty minutes or forty-five minutes, if you never change your intensity, you'll be improving your endurance but not your rate of fat burning.
  • You're focusing on the calorie burning – It's true that your fitness tracker has a feature that shows you how many calories your run has burned but that data should be used more as a general guide than a scientific measurement. At best, these devices can only guess at your actual rate of calorie burning and it is important to note that they don't take into consideration the rest of the calories you burn every day just by being alive.
  • You haven’t changed your eating habits – The best explanation must sometimes be saved for last. Sometimes, all your efforts for running to achieve weight loss are simply not enough. It’s not that you haven’t tried hard enough. It isn’t that you aren’t going fast enough, that you haven’t changed things up enough or that your performance is too weak. Always remember that the biggest factor in weight loss is diet. The biggest factor in preventing weight gain is exercise. Therefore, your runs may actually be doing the most they can do for you, it just doesn’t happen to be what you’re measuring.

Should You Keep Up Your Regular Runs?

If you love running, you should keep it up, regardless of whether it’s for weight loss! It is fantastic for your overall health and is still supporting your efforts by preventing weight gain from happening when losing is your goal. What’s more, by keeping it up, you’ll have the right habits in place to know that once you do hit your target, all you’ll need to do is exactly what you’re doing, and the pounds will stay away.

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