Running is one of the best ways of losing weight, as attested to by many experts and the hundreds of thousands of runners who had lost weight.
If your immediate goal right now is losing weight, running is one of the best alternatives. It is almost without cost. It might even be the cheapest weight loss program bar none.
The doctor
The very first person you have to see and talk about your plan of losing weight is your doctor. Only he would know for sure everything about you, your body, your health and the things that may be good or bad for you.
After you get your doctors permission, begin to implement your plan of losing weight through running gradually at first. For some, walking for a short period of time is a good start.
Walking will first help you improve your cardiovascular health. After which, you may begin to do some slow jogging. Follow this up with running after a time.
Your body needs to be familiar with the new regular activity. Your trainer and your doctor could give you a timetable.
Slow and gradual
Once you are into regular running according to plan, you do not do sprints right away in the hope of losing weight faster. Also wrong would be to overdo the length or the time limit of your running, again in the hope of losing weight faster.
Starting out slow and gradual in your running program can give you the room to modify, change, or scrap some parts of your program until you are comfortable and satisfied with it.
Changes
Changing your workout routine is one very important consideration in your weight loss program. To those who do not understand this, there is a big tendency that runners might abandon their running routine at this time.
After some time when a runner had already been deep into his running program, the body stops losing weight.
The simple explanation is that the body readily adapts to any new situation and can become accustomed to a running program. By this time, the body becomes very efficient and only requires fewer calories to do the same amount of work.
The unfortunate side effect is that the body stops losing weight as well.
After weeks of running, and after losing some amount of weight, you may find that your weight loss slows down. Sometime later, you will notice that your weight stays as is, unable to lose a single pound.
One way to resolve this is to vary the distance, length or intensity of your running. You may increase the length to about 3 to 4 miles, or lengthening the time each day, or perhaps running at a faster pace.
Doing this can challenge the muscles anew. The body cannot become more efficient and has to burn some calories to complete the new additional requirement.
In addition, you can help challenge the body by doing some changes in your diet. A potent combination in losing weight is increased activity levels and dietary changes.
All in all, keep to your schedule and your program. After a while, your weight goal can be achieved and you will stile enjoy the activity of running.