Weight Loss Running

You want to get rid of that beer gut, or fit in a special skirt or dress again (I know you ladies still want to fit in your wedding dress!), and think let’s try out cardio.

So you hop on the treadmill and run every day for two weeks. Then, you finally step on the scale and see that you lost… barely 1lb. Wow you must thinking “that’s disappointing and a waste of time” (and you probably are right).

Well this article is going to discuss how to burn fat more effectively during your cardio workouts and lose more weight, so you can get that belt loop back or stop sucking in your stomach to put on a pair of pants (don’t give me that eye roll).

Don’t eat before a run

Running on an empty stomach is the way to best way for you to actually lose weight from running, and the reason is so simple. You have minimal food (mainly carbohydrates) to use as an energy source.

During a normal cardio workout, your body uses readily available carbs to uses as the fuel to burn while you are preforming the exercise.

When you don’t eat before a cardio workout, your body doesn’t have many carbs available to use as a fuel source. Once your body uses all the remaining carbs your body is going to use the next readily available stored fuel source aka fat!

Now, for it to be considered running on an “empty” stomach is ultimately up to you, since you probably would be starving in 2 hours if all you at were two saltine crackers, but you probably still would be full in 4 hours after eating Thanksgiving dinner.

Nevertheless, a compressed report on how long it takes was examined at Colorado State University which states 2.5 -3 hours to be 50% empty and 4 to 5 hours for the stomach to be completely. Therefore, normally I tell folks to not eat 3-4 hours in advance of a cardio workout if they want to lose weight.

Morning run before breakfast

Getting up and doing a cardio workouts first thing in the morning whether it’s a road run at the crack of dawn or an elliptical workout before rise are great ways to lose more weight.

Morning cardio workouts takes the advantage of weight loss on an empty stomach, but amplifies the fat burning advice even more.

See, the available carbohydrate fuel source on an empty stomach is fairly low, but the available carbs first thing in the morning before breakfast are even lower due to not digesting any food in at least the past 7 to 8 hours.

Since the carb count is so low, your body will burn through all it’s available carbohydrate fuel source much easier during the cardio workout. In turn, this makes the transfer to burning that belly fat as the fuel source during a cardio workout much faster.

Changing things up

This is simple. Sometimes you get too comfortable with your routine (why do you think your spouse says “we need to go on a trip” or “we never go on dates anymore”), so just like in life sometimes you need to spicy things up with your cardio exercises or even general workout routine.

Humans are designed to adapt to survive, so your body is going to adjust to overcome the problem in our case the workout exercise.

Think about it. Have you ever noticed that you are extra sore the day after working out a muscle you normally don’t focus on or simply after doing an exercise that is not in your normal routine? For instance, cycling can work your quads a little more while jumping rope can be strenuous on your calves.

So a subtle change in cardio exercises can give you that extra edge to fit in those pants again.

Here are some alternative cardio exercises outside of running

  • Elliptical
  • Endless staircase
  • Rowing
  • Cycling
  • Jumping rope

Longer run and or High intensity

Yes, if you run longer, cycle longer, or row longer, you will burn more calories. Or if you run faster, cycle faster, or row faster, you will burn more calories. No duh!

I know that this piece of advice is pretty obvious (To be honest it is almost common sense in modern era with all of the available health and fitness information), but I grouped duration and intensity together for a reason.

When I walk into the gym, I see so many people on the treadmill doing one of two things

Walking on the treadmill for an hour while reading a book or watching a movie… Or sprinting on the treadmill for three minute

Now, both of those forms of working out are perfectly fine. In fact, it is awesome to just see people coming to the gym and get some exercise in! However, if you are serious about increasing the efficiency of weight loss through cardio, I recommend to not reduce your intensity of your workout just to stay on the treadmill or any cardio equipment a little longer and vice versa.

Instead, you should increase the intensity while keeping the time duration the same or increase the time duration while keeping the same pace.  Heck if you really want to lose that belly fat increase the intensity and duration!

Summary

Losing weight can be tough especially in you are trying to get that beach body shape, and sometimes you feel like you are putting on more weight than losing it.

There are many ways people can lose weight such as dieting or weight lifting, but without a doubt running is viable option and make it much easier.

Again as long as you try to run in the morning, don’t eat beforehand, and increase duration or intensity it should hopefully make the process much easier.

There is no debate that losing weight can be a serious challenge and frustrating at times, but just rem

But no matter if which way you decide to lose weight through lifting , dieting or running just make sure you are enjoying life along the way!

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[…] Weight loss is not just about being serious while cycling indoors, staring at a wall. You can make it fun with some interesting fitness apps. Today the apps enable users to create their avatar and also select various fun routes to keep challenging them every day. This is how their everyday indoor cycling routine becomes more fun. […]