If running to lose weight is your main goal, there are a few things worth knowing, like the importance of staying active on days you simply can’t fit in a run. Staying active can be as simple as washing your car, engaging your kids at the playground, vacuuming, shovelling snow, and even riding your bike to do your errands (wear a backpack or throw a basket on your bike). Losing weight naturally and effectively happens over time and is a lifetime commitment. While you may have a goal weight it must be maintained once it is reached. To keep away from overuse injuries and burnout, try one day a week swimming laps, riding a bicycle on your running route, (or scout out new running routes via bike), or grab a video/take a class on Yoga, Bellydancing, Jump roping, hoola-hooping. The point is to STAY active.
To lose one pound, through exercise or life functions, you must burn 3600 calories which brings up the diet factor. While runners have special nutritional needs eating whole grains, fruits and vegetables and choosing smaller portions of high-fat high-calorie food is a sure-fire way to keep a more even keeled exercise to calorie ratio. Keep in mind if you begin training for long-distance events skipping meals or skimping on necessary calories does not allow you to train adequately fuelled muscles.
If you are active 6 out of 7 days in some aspect or another with running as your main form of exercise and you are following the basic guidelines of a healthy diet then it is time to throw in a metabolism boosting challenge such as interval training. Interval training (running at a fast speed for short intervals of time) burns a great amount of calories while increasing your muscle mass and improving your resting metabolism. To incorporate interval training into my runs I will pick a landmark up ahead and see how fast I can sprint to it. Doing this every mile or a couple of times every mile will also help to keep your run more interesting/rewarding. If you run your neighborhood pick two specific points and time yourself every time you sprint from one end to the other…try beating yourself every time!
Losing weight can seem like an ominous goal what with all of the diets and fad exercise machines. But I’m telling you EAT RIGHT, STAY ACTIVE, CHALLENGE YOURSELF, and you will find weight easier to lose and easiest to keep off (the main complaint for people trying to lose weight).
