Running is good for health. But it might not be enough if you are using it lose weight. While you have to watch what you eat to lose weight, you need to be equally conscious about the right kind of exercise that will help you achieve your health goal. To get results you need to mix things up.Here are three reasons why your favourite exercise routine might be your biggest weight loss enemy.
You burn fewer calories with running Weight loss is simple science of burning more calories. But your repetitive routine of cardio at the same intensity level is making you burn fewer calories per hour as compared to high intensity workouts. Running to your body is what brushing to your mind. Because you have been doing it for so long that it starts to feel effortless and your metabolism doesn’t rev up as much and therefore limiting the number of calories being burnt with the same exercise output.That’s why you need to spice things up with moderate to high intensity of resistance training if you want to lose fat. Using weights or even your own body weight to exercise impacts your metabolism as you engage different muscle groups at the same time, versus running where you are engaging the same muscle group all through. Resistance training also helps rev up your metabolism so that you continue to burn calories upto 48 hours after your workout
Cardio is more than just running Now that you know that engaging different muscle groups is important to your overall weight-loss goals, it only makes sense that you would want to also do the type of training that helps this happen in the least amount of time. While walking, running is essentially lower intensity activities they actually impair strength and muscle growth. Helping build muscles promotes faster weight loss.Doing short intervals of different forms of cardio like strength training can help you get better results in lesser amount of time. Some of the most popular cardio strength training exercises are: jumping jack, plank, squats, mountain climber, and push ups. These exercises help you burn more calories per minute than low intensity running.
Too much of anything doesn’t have the same results Too much running can also make you fat. Exercising releases hormones in the body. While these hormones are good for regular functioning of the body too much of these can impact your ability to lose fat.In this case of running for more than an hour a day is pushing your body to release extra hormones in your system that slow down your metabolism and increase your insulin resistance.If you’re doing about 30 minutes of cardio per day, that’s more than enough for fat loss. If you start running for more than an hour per day and aren’t losing weight (or maybe evening gaining), you might benefit more if you reduced your frequency and added some resistance training, and see what happens. You can even mix up your cardio weekly routine with assigning few days to high intensity interval training and see your performance also improve.All forms of exercise are good for the body. We are not saying that running is not good. The point that we are making is that if you are looking to lose weight then you need to do more than just running. Lastly giving your body adequate nutrition, while you exercise, also plays a very important part in keeping the body in optimum health.