Health
& Wellbeing
Running
to lose weight as part of a balanced diet.
This section is for people who are
starting running to lose weight.
To lose fat, you need
to eat fewer calories or burn more energy
Your body stores the excess calories that you consume as body fat. So if
you want to reduce your body fat, you need either to consume fewer calories, or
burn more energy. Any weight-loss programme is only going to succeed if it
delivers one or both of these.
- Don't
diet: run instead.
Dieting will reduce your muscle and water content as well as your body
fat. It is difficult to keep up a diet, because you continually have
to fight temptation. Limiting what you eat can also be unhealthy.
Exercise, by contrast, will burn calories, increase your lean muscle and
body tone, and raise your metabolic rate. If you increase you
exercise, you can continue to eat enough to make you feel satisfied, and
get a wide range of vitamins and minerals, without putting on weight. It
will improve your appearance, reduce stress, and improve your
health.
- Don't
begin a diet and start to run at the same time
It is
a bad idea to begin a diet and start to run at the same time. When
you are a runner your body needs plenty of fuel and a wide range of
vitamins and nutrients. If you begin a diet at the same time as you
start to run, you may find you do not have enough energy or other
nutrients to run, and you will risk illness or injury. You may want
to rebalance the composition of your diet (see below) but do not try to
restrict your food intake when you start running.
- To
lose more body fat, exercise more
To
estimate the amount of calories you need, first multiply your weight in
kilograms by 33. This gives you your calorie requirement for a
moderately active person who does not exercise. On top of that, to walk,
jog or run a mile uses about 100 calories. (It doesn't matter how
fast you do it: the energy used is about the same.) From this, you
can calculate the amount of calories you should consume each day to reduce
your body fat. Never cut your calorie intake to below 80% of your
calorie requirement. Running regularly also increases your resting
metabolic rate, and increases your percentage of lean muscle, so
increasing your energy consumption throughout the day. Over time,
for every extra 6 miles a week you run, your equilibrium body weight will
settle at about 1kg lighter.
- Rebalance
what you eat
Eat
about 55% of your daily calorie intake as carbohydrates, 15% as fat, and
30% as protein. Within this broad framework, eat a varied diet, with
plenty of fresh and unprocessed food to ensure that you get the right
vitamins and minerals. Carbohydrate and protein are about 4 calories
per gram; fat is about 9 calories per gram. Carbohydrates,
particularly dietary fibre, tend to be bulky and so make you feel full
without providing too many calories. Eat proteins with carbohydrates
(e.g. a handful of nuts when you eat a banana) to prevent your body from
over-reacting to the sugars.
- Drink
plenty of water
Drinking
more water will help your running, your health and your complexion.
It will also make your stomach feel more full, and so reduce any tendency
you might have to snack. Don't try to lose weight by losing
water e.g. will be purely temporary, and the dehydration will make it more
difficult for you to exercise as hard or as long, so you will end up
burning fewer calories. Dehydration can make you very ill, and in
extreme cases may be fatal.
- Focus
on your body fat, not your weight
Exercising will increase your lean muscle, which is more dense than fat.
So you may find that when you begin an exercise programme, your weight
goes up, or does not fall, because the extra muscle more than makes up for
the reduced fat. But you will nonetheless have less fat, and a better
toned body.
- Running
more slowly will not burn more fat
You
may have heard about the "fat burning zone", or seen machines in
the gym which suggest lower exertion levels to burn fat. But running
further will always burn more calories - so the best way to burn fat is to
run as far as you can.
- Exercising
part of the body does not reduce the fat in that part of the body. You sometimes see
people in gyms exercising their legs in the hope of reducing the fat on
their thighs. It won't work. When your body supplies energy to
muscles, it does not burn nearby fat. Sadly, the fat often comes off
just where you don't want it to! Working particular muscles may improve
the appearance of that part of your body by increasing muscle bulk and
tone, but it won't reduce the fat there.
- Don't
overdo it.
You
should not try to reduce your body weight by more than 1% of your
bodyweight in a week if you want to do it safely and also to sustain your
results. If you continue to run regularly, your body fat will fall
away over time. Sit back and enjoy the running. You may find
that you do not lose as much weight as you expected, because of the
replacement of fat by lean tissue, which is heavier than fat. But
your body shape and appearance will improve.
Best
of Luck
John
Roche