Like many, I turned to running when faced with the need or desire to lose weight. I'm grateful for running, as it was the launching pad for my fitness journey and transformation. But as a runner, a coach, and a personal trainer, I've noticed several common misconceptions about fat loss and running that could impede your progress.
One of the most common questions for many of us is, why am I running so much but still not seeing the weight loss results I desire?
Running burns many calories, so why aren't the pounds falling off?
THE PROBLEM WITH RUNNING FOR FAT LOSS
Let's start with adaptation. The first time you laced up your new shoes and ran around the block, you were huffing and puffing when you reached the first corner. Your heart rate shot up, your lungs burned, and your legs were tired. You ran inefficiently, and your body had to work very hard. But over time, it got better. You could run a mile or five with much less effort than that first time around the block. Improved efficiency is excellent for the joy of running, race results, and general fitness performance, but it makes fat loss a bit harder. Essentially, the harder your body works and the more inefficient (harder) the exercise is, the more calories you burn.
So you may have noticed when you started a running routine, you may have experienced fat loss, but after four to six weeks, your results seemed to fade.
If you run the exact 15-30 miles per week, at the same pace, week after week, month after month, year after year, your body will adapt and become very efficient and burn fewer calories for the same workouts.
One way to combat this is to run more volume (miles) or increase intensity (i.e.run faster, sprints, or hills). If your body works harder than it is accustomed to, it will burn more calories. Excellent! Except that your body will also adapt to this new stimulus, which is good! It's why you can train to run a marathon or improve your 5K time. The beautiful thing is when you incrementally give your body more stress (workouts), it adapts and gets stronger or faster as long it is paired with proper recovery. It's good news for performance but not great for continued fat loss because if you keep piling on the miles or intensity after a certain amount, you won't have the time in your day or the ability to recover from hours of prolonged or intense workouts.
One way to add more movement for fat loss without too much extra stress on your body is to take walks or move around more to increase your daily step count. If you get considerably less than 10K steps daily, working up to 8K to 10K a day can be beneficial.
Even as a runner, a running coach, and an advocate for running for health and longevity, I still believe running is not the best tool for continuous fat loss. It works until it doesn't. More is not always better, and it more often leads to injury or burnout. Don't get me wrong. Running is fantastic for weight maintenance, mental health, and heart health. I love to run. Keep doing it.
So, if running, as many people have led to believe, is not the best tool for continued fat loss, then what is?
CALORIE DEFICIT FOR RUNNERS WANTING FAT LOSS
Enter calorie deficit. A calorie deficit means taking in fewer calories than you burn. It is the primary driver of weight loss. Many people interpret this to mean moving more and eating less. But we already discussed how moving more (and more and more) only works for so long. If you are sitting on the couch (sedentary) and eating fast food, by all means, move more and eat less. But if you are a runner and already very active, this may not be the best advice either.
The issue for endurance runners and a calorie deficit is that asking your body to do more and then feeding it less can be problematic. Your body needs calories, macronutrients, and micronutrients to fuel and recover from exercise. If you deprive your body of what it needs to perform and heal, it will break down, and you may end up either burnt out or injured.
I do not recommend a calorie deficit if you are training for an endurance race. Having fat loss and race performance goals simultaneously can be counterproductive. Which is more important? Do you want to lose fat or run a race? If you choose one at a time, i.e., train for a race and set a fat loss goal between race training cycles, you will get better overall results for both goals.
You will need calories to fuel and recover properly when training for a race. Depending on the distance of your race, you may even need intra-workout calories. Reducing calories is not ideal during endurance race training. Setting fat loss goals aside until after your race is usually best.
If you are running to maintain fitness between race cycles, it can be a good time for a slight calorie deficit to increase fat loss. However, it's important not to cut calories too drastically or lose weight too fast to avoid muscle loss and increase the chance of rebound weight.
FAT LOSS AND YOUR METABOLISM
We discussed how your body adapts to exercise; the same applies to your metabolism. Metabolism is the chemical reactions in the body that convert food into energy. Simply put, when you give your body less food, it adapts (called metabolic adaptation) to function on less food. In the same way, you can't just add more and more miles to burn more calories; you can't eat less and less to lose more fat. Your body will try to keep you alive by using those fewer calories for your brain, organs, and other essential processes. Your body sheds weight such as fat (yay) but also muscle (not yay) and reduces other non-essentials due to nutrient deficiencies, so you feel low energy while on a low-calorie diet for an extended time. Your hair starts falling out, your nails get brittle, your feet are cold, and you do not recover well (or get injured) from workouts. In some cases, you may lose your period. These symptoms can result from low energy availability, not giving your body the nutrients to look, feel, and perform its best.
Eating fewer calories smartly and sustainably is necessary for fat loss, but consuming fewer and fewer calories is not always better, especially for athletes who have already reduced calories or have been operating on low calories for a long time.
So, if runners with fat loss goals struggle to lose fat by running more and eating fewer calories effectively, how can they do it?
STRENGTH TRAINING FOR RUNNERS FOR FAT LOSS
Start by building muscle. Woah, woah. Wouldn't building muscle make me big and bulky, the opposite of my desired result? I want to be smaller and faster. All the extra weight will slow me down and be counterproductive to my goals. This common misconception holds many runners back from reaching their fat loss goals.
Lifting weights and performing resistance training exercises will not make most women big and bulky or add significant weight. I wish I had large and bulky muscles, and I have been working for a long time toward that goal, but the results are slow. It is hard to build large muscles, especially for women who run endurance.
Building strength and muscle can help improve your metabolism, increase the amount of calories you can eat without gaining fat, help you lose fat while preserving muscle, improve your running performance, and prevent injuries.
The best strategy for fat loss for runners is a strength training program and adherence to nutrition. Running can be part of the plan, although it is not the primary driver of continued fat loss.
But doesn't running build muscles in my legs? They should be really strong from all these miles. Yes, and then no.
When you first start running, you will develop muscle and strength in your legs and glutes as you work previously unused muscles. But over time, as is the theme of this article, your muscles adapt. As you run longer miles, up hills, or sprint, you can build muscle, but without additional stimulus to continue the growth (aka resistance training), your body adapts, and you do not gain new strength or muscle from the same workouts, and can lose muscle over time. The workouts need to be progressive: a little more (more weight, more reps, more sets, less rest, slower reps, or new exercises) to continue seeing positive changes. So, yes, you can build some muscle and strength when you start running, but over time, you need to provide additional resistance to continue progressing.
Strength training should be a full-body progressive program that covers all the movement patterns: squat, hinge, push, and pull at least twice a week. The weight should feel heavy enough to feel challenging towards the end of a 6-12 rep range. Then, runners can also benefit from single-leg (SL deadlifts, lunges, or SL bridges) exercises and multi-planar (multidirectional, like side lunges and lift and chop) exercises for performance and injury-prevention benefits. It doesn't have to be complicated or take too much time. It needs to be consistent and progressive. Need help? This is my expertise.
Strength training will help you preserve (and even build) muscle, so when you lose weight, your body loses fat and keeps your metabolism revving up with muscle.
Muscle is denser than fat, so it takes up less space in the body. If you build muscle and lose fat simultaneously (the holy grail), the scale might stay the same (or even increase), but you may wear a smaller pant size.
Losing weight without muscle training results in a smaller body size, less muscle mass, slower metabolism, more frailty, and greater susceptibility to injury and weight regain. Losing weight by preserving or building muscle results in a new athletic shape that is more flexible with the calories you consume (i.e., you can eat more without gaining weight).
Muscle is metabolically expensive. That means the body burns more calories while sitting around, watching TV, and sleeping when you have more muscle. Those calories are not as easily stored as fat when you eat because they are needed to preserve and build muscle. You can eat more and maintain or even lose fat.
NUTRITION FOR FAT LOSS
Of course, nutrition matters for fat loss. We want our nutrition to work for us, to fuel our bodies and recover effectively, and to allow us to enjoy life, celebrations, and meals with friends and family.
One of the best ways to improve nutrition for fat loss is to limit processed foods as much as is reasonable in your lifestyle. Eating whole foods from nature helps naturally limit calories because processed foods are easier to overeat. I don't mean to go extreme here; look to eat mostly meat, fish, vegetables, fruits, nuts, etc. It doesn't mean you must make everything from scratch or grow and hunt all your own food. Aim to make the most reasonable, least processed option available when it makes sense. Aim for a small and sustainable calorie deficit when not training intensely.
THE IMPORTANCE OF PROTEIN FOR FAT LOSS
We discussed how vital resistance training is to fat loss, and protein is a crucial contributor to muscle building and fat loss. Protein needs vary from individual to individual, but if you are an adult woman who weighs over 100 pounds, is a runner, and lifts weights, you would likely need at least 100 grams of protein per day. Your needs may increase from there depending on your current body weight, goals, and activity level. But I suggest tracking your protein intake for a few days to a week to get an average. Are you effortlessly passing the 100-gram mark, or do you fall short? You may be surprised when you track. Review nutrition labels and serving sizes, and measure and weigh for the most accurate tracking.
Protein has added benefits for fat loss. It is more satiating, so you feel fuller between meals. If you track and find you are only getting 50-70 grams per day (which is common for people who were previously unaware), then you can slowly start adding more protein into your day over time to get closer to your goal. Don't feel the need to double your protein grams overnight. Add 10-20 grams extra at a time, over time, to allow your body to adjust.
A few high-protein options are meat and poultry, fish, tofu, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, eggs, egg whites, edamame, and protein powder (if whole foods are inconvenient or unavailable). Download my free high-protein meal ideas PDF. While some foods like peanut butter and cheese contain protein, which can add to your daily totals, these are not high-protein foods. I categorize them as fats in the diet.
DOES EATING FAT MAKE YOU FAT?
Eating fats does not make you fat, as previously believed in popular culture. Include healthy fats in proper portions as part of a fat loss plan. Healthy fats are necessary to absorb nutrients and keep your hormones balanced. Fats have more calories per gram (nine) than carbohydrates and protein (four each), and they are usually delicious, so they are easier to overconsume. A mistake many people make is overeating healthy foods like nuts and avocados, not realizing their portion sizes or high-calorie content. The overconsumption of calories beyond your body's needs leads to fat gain, not one particular food or macronutrient.
Aim for proper portions of healthy fats like avocados, unflavored nuts, and extra virgin olive oil. A thumb-size of fats is a good measure of an appropriate portion.
BUT SURELY CARBOHYDRATES ARE OFF-LIMITS FOR FAT LOSS, RIGHT? (WRONG!)
Fat may have been the villain in the 90s, but today, the world thinks that carbohydrates and sugar lead to fat gain. As mentioned above, fat gain does not happen from consuming a single food or macronutrient. It is caused by the overconsumption of calories, as a whole, in relation to your body's needs.
As a runner, it is essential to understand that carbohydrates are protein-sparing. That means the body uses glycogen (energy stored from eating carbohydrates) instead of breaking down muscle for energy. Once you understand how vital muscle is for healthy metabolism and fat loss, you know why eating smart carbohydrates in proper portions is essential for a runner's fat loss goals. If you have concerns about eating carbohydrates, try to time them directly around your workouts, before and after, to use them for performance and recovery.
IMPROVE SLEEP AND STRESS MANAGEMENT FOR FAT LOSS
I can't close out this lesson without mentioning rest and recovery in fat loss. If you feel like you have been doing everything right but still are not seeing the desired results, look at your sleep and stress levels. If left unchecked, poor sleep and high stress can inhibit fat loss due to their impact on hormones.
Sometimes, we expect immediate results, but fat loss, the right way, takes time. Slow it down, train hard, fuel appropriately, and expect results, no matter when they may come. Most importantly, enjoy the process! We can't force outcomes, but the results come more naturally when we fall in love with the journey.
FAT LOSS FOR RUNNERS RECAP
Running is excellent for health and weight maintenance, but there are better long-term strategies for fat loss.
Increasing your daily step count can be an effective way to get more movement without adding a lot of additional stress to your body.
The key is a small calorie deficit, but to balance your unique energy needs as a runner so you do not eat too little and sabotage your results and performance.
A combination of nutrition adherence, progressive resistance training, and running or walking will yield the best fat-loss results.
Protein is essential to retain and build muscle as you lose weight.
Fat doesn't make you fat, but pay attention to portion sizes to avoid overeating.
Smart carbohydrates don't make you fat and can help preserve muscle, give you energy, and help with recovery.
Aim to eat whole, unprocessed natural foods as much as feasible in your lifestyle.
Prioritize sleep and stress management when in a fat-loss phase.
Train hard, expect results, but enjoy the process.
Lea
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