Shed
Fat with Quality Running
Running
For Weight Loss
by Josh Clark
As weight-loss exercises go, running is right at the top. Although you
may hear that lower-intensity exercises such as walking and jogging
are better for fat-burning, it's not entirely the case. It is true that
the proportion of fat to carbohydrates burned is higher with low-intensity
exercise -- the same is true for sitting in front of your computer right
now. But high-intensity exercise, like running, burns more total calories
per minute (and marginally more per mile), including a higher absolute
number of fat calories. To lose body fat and build lean muscle mass,
you need to structure a running program into your fitness routine.
That said, this does not mean that you should necessarily do heavy,
intense sprinting to burn the most fat. It's the law of diminishing
returns. As you increase the intensity of your workout to maximum effort,
your body uses fewer and fewer calories of fat and more from carbohydrate-supplied
glycogen. This is because it's easier for your body to convert glycogen
into energy -- when your body works at peak effort it seeks energy from
the most efficient source. So the key is finding the right balance:
an exercise level that is sufficiently intense to burn more calories,
but not so intense that you stop burning fat altogether.
To burn this fat most efficiently, it is ideal to run for at least forty
minutes per session. While you burn mainly carbohydrates in the first
minutes of your run, your body switches to fat as its primary fuel after
about 30 minutes.
The key is managing the intensity of your workout. When your running
becomes very labored, you're not burning much fat. If you can keep up
an easy comfortable pace for 40 minutes, that's ideal. If 40 minutes
is a stretch for you, or if you start becoming very tired, take frequent
breaks of brisk walking. You will burn more fat with three of these
40-minute workouts per week than you will with six 20-minute workouts.
Over time, too, as your body becomes more and more accustomed to exercise,
your muscles become trained to use more fat as fuel, rather than carbohydrates.
Because muscle feeds on fat, it becomes a snowball effect: the higher
your percentage of muscle, the more fat you burn all day long. Keep
in mind that as you lose fat, you may not necessarily lose weight. Muscle
weighs more than fat, and you should not be alarmed if you actually
gain weight with your exercise program. Look again: you may be gaining
weight but losing inches.