Why Steady State Jogging is A Losing Battle for Weight Loss
For a lot of people, running and weight loss go hand in hand. But are you running for weight loss or running for health reasons? Running for weight loss is worlds apart from running for health.
Running for Health
If you are running for health, by all means start or continue to do so. Exercises where you exert at a steady pace are called Steady State Cardio exercises. This is because you would almost always cover the same distance at the same intensity.
Steady state cardio also includes all the other type of exercises that you would do in a gym such as the elliptical trainer or stationary bike.
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 restores its 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 and helps prevent dementia in the aging population. It also helps to reduce depression and anxiety. Last but not least, there are all the positive effects on your cardiovascular system.
Running and Weight Loss
Running and weight loss is a different ball game all together. If you are running for weight loss, you are fighting a losing battle. You can get exceptional weight loss results if you do high intensity interval type running. But except for fit individuals, very few people do this. As such, the rest of the article makes reference to running as a steady state cardio type of exercise. See an 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 “How to Make Jogging Work for Weight Loss“, you will understand why you have to continuously increase your running distance to continue losing weight. In other words, you need to continuously increase running 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).
What it means is that if were running for weight loss, you would burn 10 grams of your fat stores to complete your jog today. When you continue at the same intensity, you may only need 8 or 9 grams in a month to run the same distance.
Running and weight loss?
Most people who cannot continuously increase running distances will reach a level of equilibrium. Provided their food intake remains the same, 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 would 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 where food is abundant.
So when it comes to running and weight loss, ask yourself the reasons for doing so. It’s not right or wrong to continue running. Just make sure you know if you are running for weight loss or running for health.
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31/01/2009
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.
13/01/2010
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
14/01/2010
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.
10/08/2011
I was a serious bodybuilder for several years then became a serious road cyclist. I’ve done both types of training with a passion. Without question, both forms will get you super lean. Take a look at Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was 27 and Lance Armstrong when he was 27. Both had around 3% body fat max. However, far less cardio time is needed to achieve the same amount of fat loss when bodybuilding vs. cycling. I would spend roughly 15-30 minutes of total cardio 5-6 days a week during bodybuilding but around 15 hours of steady cardio per week cycling with multiple high intensity periods throughout yet my total body fat was around the same for both sports but probably less percentage wise when bodybuilding. More muscle mass increases your resting metabolic rate so you burn more fat when not working out and more calories are utilized in repairing and rebuilding muscle for strength training than that endurance training.