Do you jog for weight loss or do you jog for health reasons? The 2 are worlds apart and I suggest you re-read the question before answering it.
Jogging for Enhancing Health
If the primary reason for you exercising is to enjoy the health benefits that exercise has to offer, by all means start or continue to walk/jog/run. These type of exercises are called Steady State Cardio exercises as you would almost always walk/jog/run the same distance at the same intensity. It also covers all the other type of exercises that you would do in a gym such as the elliptical trainer, stationary bike, etc.
Steady State Cardio is extremely helpful for those who have a very stressful life. It is like pressing the Ctrl-Alt-Del button in your brain and rebooting it. Just like rebooting a Windows PC always enhances it’s performance, the same effect can be expected on your mind when you do Steady State Cardio. Latest studies have shown that Steady State cardiovascular exercises boost the mental abilities of children, helps prevent dementia in the aging population, help against depression and anxiety and not to mention the positive effects on your cardiovascular system.
Jogging for Weight Loss
Jogging for weight loss is a different ball game all together. If your sole purpose to perform Steady State Cardiovascular exercises is to lose weight, you are fighting a losing battle. See my earlier article on a scientific paper published addressing this issue “How to Make Jogging Work for Weight Loss”
Steady State Cardiovascular exercises are endurance based. This is what you would expect from the marathoners and long distance runners. If you have read Jogging : The Losing Battle to Fight Weight Loss, you will understand why you have to continuously increase your running distance in order to continue losing weight. In other words, you need to continuously increase intensity.
Always remember that the only reason you and I are still around today is because of the highly adaptive nature of our bodies. It can adapt to what ever stresses you throw at it. When you continuously jog the same distance every time, your body tries to adapt to this form of exercise. It senses that you are continuously running long distances and thus must make your muscles more efficient at utilizing fuel (your fat stores in this case). As I had mentioned before, what it means is that if you would burn 10grams of your fat stores to complete your jog today, you may only need 8 or 9 grams in a month to run the same distance. This is provided you continuously train for that time.
Running and weight loss?
Most people who cannot continuously increase running distances will reach a level of equilibrium. Provided their food intake is maintained, they will neither lose or gain weight. If they want to lose more weight, they need to run a little further but the body quickly adapts and again a state of equilibrium is achieved. This is our survival mechanism at its best. This survival mechanism was essential for our pre-historic ancestors. Assume that a caveman had to forage a jungle or chase a prey for days. He would most probably be doing it in a situation with reduced access to food. If there was ample food, there wold be no need for him to do this work. Unless his body adapted to the stress and made his muscles more efficient, he would continue using up his fat stores. Unless he found food, he would eventually run out of fat stores and die. As such, the adaptive mechanism of the body was essential for survival.
You will also note that during long bouts of jogging or running, the body actually thinks that it is starving and will start holding on to body fat even more tightly as ever. No matter how much you been jogging or running, the muscles have become very efficient and the body has started to become very strict with the releasing of body fat for fuel. The body still thinks that you are a caveman chasing some prey somewhere and if it does not ration the release of your fat stores for burning, you will eventually die of starvation. If we could only let our bodies know that we were only exercising in a world of abundant food………
This takes us back to the scenario of the prehistoric cave man where inefficient utilization of body fat for fuel meant certain death. Once again it is our survival mechanism kicking in. This is one of the reasons why even the most active marathoner will have a pouch in the mid section. You will seldom find a marathoner with a 6-pack. The stomach is the last place for storage of fat and the body will fight tooth and nail before releasing it for burning. The body does not know that food supply is ample and there is no threat to survival. Ever seen starving people in the African continent with protruding bellies?
We have a sophisticated survival mechanism controlled by outdated genes in a modern world that has abundant food!
Train Like a Sprinter to Look Like a Sprinter
Correct Weight Loss is training like how a sprinter trains. A sprinter usually never runs for long distances. His training consists of short bursts of sprints followed by rests. There is off course also lots of weight training incorporated. Now look at the difference in physiques of a marathoner and a sprinter below.
- Difference in physique between a marathoner & a sprinter
When you look at the physiques on the left, which do you find more appealing? And also just because I have shown physiques of men in the picture, it does not mean that the bodies of women would behave any differently? You can expect the same results if you are a woman. The only difference is that while a man would have well defined muscles and a V shaped body, a woman will have a well toned body that moves her closer to the hourglass shape.
So with all this information, what can you do to increase your weight loss results. Take note that exercise and nutrition comes as a package. You can’t do either in isolation.
If you are pressed for time and are busier that Barack Obama, your main priority should be resistance training. If you have more time, then you could add in some Steady State Cardio but never at the expense of resistance training. In one of the future articles, I will talk about another form of training called High Intensity Interval training. This is exactly what the sprinters do. Its sprinting all out for say 30 seconds and then walking for say 60 seconds. But be warned that this is not for the faint hearted. It could take any where from 6 – 12 months before you are conditioned enough to perform this type of training.
Most men can get away with substantial weight loss with just resistance training. Women may have to have a fair mix of resistance training and Steady State Cardio.
I have to pass a large gym when I get back home. You would not believe the number of men and women who slog tirelessly on the cardio machines. I believe they are clocking the same distance and time day after day. I wish they knew why they were slogging on those machines. It would be a pity if they were mindlessly exerting all that effort in the vain hope of losing weight. What would eventually happen is there would be weight loss in the beginning until the body adapts and finds an equilibrium. After that weight loss stops. The enthusiastic exerciser would cycle longer or run faster until he reaches a point of frustration. They would then give up and say that exercising does not work.
If you know of such people, please refer them to this article. All they need to do is add some resistance training and reduce their cardio exercises and the fat would start melting off. Work smarter not harder! Work like the sprinter and not like the marathoner.
So if you are still jogging, ask yourself the reasons for doing so. Its not right or wrong to continue jogging. Just make sure that you are doing it for the correct reasons.
Lose weight correctly, once and for all!
Tags: jogging, running, jogging and weight loss, walking and weight loss, steady state cardio, running and weight loss, sprinter body, marathoner body, V shaped body, hourglass shape, beautiful body
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The articles are great and very informative. I was wondering why my bro and I cant get rid of the pounds and did assume steady state cardio was the root cause but now its confirmed. These articles are great. A lot of women I know are adverse to working out in the gym for some of the fears you listed. I love this blog. Keep the articles coming.
Everyones responds differently. I’ve been doing nothing but steady state cardio since I’ve been in high school and haven’t gained a single pound since my sophomore year. I’m 27 now. And yes I like the way I look. I know many people who have lost much weight from running – both distance and sprinting. And no matter what exercise you choose you have to work hard to lose the weight..so I disagree with the whole “work smarter not harder” mantra thats been so widespread. I’ll boil it down for everyone:
Calories in > Calories out = Weight gain
Calories in < Calories out = Weight loss
You have a very valid point. You are also one of the luckier ones. “Working smart” does make sense. Let me elaborate. It makes a lot of sense to increase or at least hold on to your muscle mass. Everyone starts losing a small % of their muscle mass once the go beyond the age of 30. So as one ages, it becomes more and more difficult to lose or even maintain weight. Reduced muscle mass means reduced metabolic rate. So while someone could continue jogging, maintaining weight becomes that much more difficult. Your point about calorie balance is very valid. The trick here is that you could increase calories out by increasing your metabolic rate. An increased metabolic rate allows you to burn energy through out the day. A single jogging session does not allow that. It only burns calories while you are doing that exercise. So there is some truth in “working smart”. I look forward to hearing your feedback.