Many people start jogging for only one reason: They want to lose weight. In this article, we'll explain why jogging alone is not enough for weight loss in most cases, and what you should consider to lose weight effectively.
How Well Does Jogging Work for Weight Loss?
Ever since the 90s and "Heroine chic", jogging has had the reputation of being excellent for weight loss. For many people, that's the only motivation to start running at all.
But how well does weight loss through jogging really work?
Calories Burned while Jogging
In fact, you can burn up to 900 kilocalories per hour of jogging. The exact calorie burn depends on your fitness level, your weight, your lean body mass, and the pace you run.
The general rule is:
- The faster you run, the more kilocalories you burn. The slower you jog, the lower your calorie consumption will be.
- For the same body weight, a person with a lower body fat percentage consumes more energy than someone with less lean mass.
Jogging for Weight Loss - the Downside
However, even though You can burn a lot of calories with jogging, you won't get you a guarantee for weight loss from running alone. What is often forgotten are the physiological and psychological adaptations, that we must not disregard.
Both too much and too little exercise can influence our hunger hormones. This means that for most people, there's a "sweet spot" of exercise and daily activity where your hunger hormones are well-regulated and you can reliably trust your hunger and satiety cues.
However, if you jog excessively, your body may get out of balance. The result: extreme hunger, causing you to suddenly consume more calories than you burned during your run.
Especially if you consume too few carbohydrates, this hunger from jogging can get out of control.
To lose weight effectively, it's not just relevant how much you burned during a workout, but also the energy balance throughout the day and week. This is influenced by daily activity, your basal metabolic rate, your food intake, and much more.
Exercise generally accounts for only a relatively small portion of your energy needs compared to your basal metabolic rate and daily activity.
Another point many people forget when losing weight is: weight loss is not the same as fat loss.
When the number on the scale drops, it can have different reasons. The three biggest influencing factors on weight are:
- Body water
- Body fat percentage
- Muscle mass
When you go for a run, you first lose body water because you sweat. So, short-term weight loss from running doesn't mean you've lost fat yet.
Furthermore, when running, you train your muscles very little. By running casually, you won't build large muscles or significantly gain muscle mass.
Jogging for Weight Loss - Here's How
Proper nutrition goes far beyond calories. Nevertheless, calories play a big role in weight loss. Therefore, it is essential that you understand the concept of energy balance.
Energy balance is the difference between the energy your body burns and the energy you consume.
Energy Balance = Energy Intake – Energy Expenditure
If your energy balance is neutral, you maintain your weight. If you eat more than you expend, you gain body weight. And if you expend more than you eat, you lose body weight.
On a fundamental level, it really is that simple, although, of course, the factors that actually influence energy intake and expenditure are much more complex. You've already learned about some of these factors, and we'll cover others later in this article.
First and foremost, it's important to understand that there's no magic trick for weight loss - not even through jogging - but rather it's about a complete lifestyle change that puts you in a negative energy balance.
If you want to lose weight with jogging, you can't avoid a long-term dietary change.
First, we recommend starting with the basics of a balanced diet:
- Establish regular meals (2-6 per day for most people).
- Eat vegetables and fruits with (almost) every meal.
- Integrate 20-30g of protein into (almost) every meal.
- Prefer complex carbohydrate sources like whole grains, legumes, etc.
- Eat until you are 90% full.
Once these basics have become routine, you can start to specifically reduce your energy intake.
To regulate your hunger, it's important to find your individual "sweet spot" for training volume. You've already learned that both too little and too much exercise can negatively affect your feelings of hunger and satiety.
A realistic running volume for a weekly training plan can be 2-4 running sessions of 20-60 minutes each to support your weight loss goals. The duration and frequency of your training sessions depend entirely on your needs.
If you are an absolute beginner runner, then start with shorter sessions of 20-30 minutes that include walking intervals and gradually work your way up.
The more you run, the more carbohydrates you burn.
If you don't consume enough carbohydrates with high training volumes, this can increase your hunger, even if you consume enough energy, e.g., from fat.
Therefore, for higher training volumes, we recommend focusing on more carbohydrates and a bit less fat.
While jogging helps with calorie burning, the actual calorie consumption from exercise is often overestimated. The energy you burn in 20-30 minutes of daily exercise is relatively low compared to what you expend through your overall daily activity. Your daily energy needs are composed of several factors:
- Basal metabolic rate (the energy consumption at complete rest, only for basic life functions)
- Daily activity
- Digestion
- Exercise
The basal metabolic rate and daily activity generally account for the largest portion of total expenditure, especially with moderate training.
To stay healthy, you should walk at least 7,500 steps daily. If you want to lose weight, more steps can also help increase your energy expenditure.
Small changes in daily life can also help, such as:
- Take the stairs instead of the elevator
- Take an active lunch break
- Get off the bus or train one stop earlier
- Walk or cycle instead of using the car
- Park further away
- Stand up briefly and move around every hour
These measures add up throughout the day and can significantly increase your energy expenditure.
If you lose weight exclusively through jogging, the disadvantage is that you might also lose valuable muscle mass. Through specific strength training, you actively counteract the loss of muscle mass and thus maintain a higher proportion of lean body mass. This, in turn, also has a positive effect on your energy expenditure and your health.
Therefore, we recommend at least two full-body strength training sessions per week.
If you want to use running training optimally for weight loss, it makes sense to focus on carbohydrates around your workouts as much as possible, to stay more efficient during training and burn more energy. Additionally, carbohydrates around your workouts also have a positive effect on your hunger.
Immediately after training, make sure to include some protein, so your body is optimally nourished and muscle mass is "broken down" as little as possible.
By the way: not eating anymore after jogging or other widespread methods are not recommended for weight loss.
"He who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones."
Our 6 Tips for Jogging when Overweight
Are you overweight and still want to jog? Then these will help you with the following tips for your project:
If you are significantly overweight, start by walking or power walking (i.e., fast walking).
Pay attention to very good footwear that meets your needs.
After a few weeks, integrate short running intervals of a few seconds up to 1-2 minutes and alternate them with walking intervals twice as long.
Allow you more time than usual for the first five kilometers continuously and for further increases.
If necessary, use cross-training with less impact, such as elliptical trainers, cycling, swimming, and rowing, to your musculoskeletal system.
Have yourself medically examined before starting running training and
If you haven't found the right footwear for your upcoming runs yet, then we recommend our running shoe advisor. With our running shoe advisor, you're sure to find the perfect running shoe for your needs, at Running-Point!
