“My body just can\u2019t lose weight.”<\/p>\n
The voice on the other end of the phone sounded beaten, frustrated, and hopeless.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cIf you knew. If you knew how hard I\u2019ve been working. You\u2019d understand. You\u2019d know I wasn\u2019t making excuses.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n My heart went out to Sarah, a mother of a 3-year-old girl, and a successful real estate agent. She had come to me after another friend of hers, Tracy, had lost weight working with me through my online training program<\/a>, just 6 months after giving birth.<\/p>\n A deep breath followed, and Sarah asked why she should believe her body wasn\u2019t programmed to look a certain way.<\/p>\n I asked her to keep an open mind, stay patient, and to walk me through everything she had done. As she told me her tale of diet and exercise, I nodded and immediately knew what was wrong.<\/p>\n Sarah was putting in time to her weight loss. But the type of effort she was giving\u2014specifically her over-reliance on running<\/a>\u2014was a problem I had seen many times before, especially with women.<\/p>\n I explained to Sarah the reasons why her type of running plan isn\u2019t always the best way to lose fat<\/a>.<\/p>\n Notice the wording there; I did not<\/em>\u00a0say running is bad or will make<\/em> you fat. That’s just not true. It’s a great form of exercise and one with a lot of value.<\/p>\n This was about efficiency and understanding why your current cardio approach could be a reason why your jeans don\u2019t fit better\u2014even when you spend plenty of time in the gym.<\/p>\n Sarah decided to give it a try and push ahead. One month later and 7 pounds lost, we have her back on track and believing that her body can change.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re like Sarah and think your body is or are frustrated by your lack of progress, here are some simple adjustments you can make to make sure your running approach is not one giant weight loss mistake<\/a>.<\/p>\n Your body is an amazing machine. It\u2019s so incredible\u2014and designed for efficiency\u2014that if you do the same thing over and over again, the process becomes easier.<\/p>\n In the case of running, not only will running feel more effortless when repeated workout after workout (even if you\u2019re still sweating and pumping your legs), but your metabolism literally learns and reacts so that fewer calories are burned with the same exercise output.<\/p>\n This is where traditional \u201csteady state\u201d running falls short on a long-term weight loss plan. Research conducted at the University of Tampa found that doing steady state cardio\u2014such as running on the treadmill for 45 minutes at a consistent pace that\u2019s not near maximal effort (think sprinting)\u2014helps out with weight loss\u2026but only initially.<\/p>\n The subjects lost a few pounds in the first week and then kaput! <\/em>Nothing more. The reason? Within a week their metabolism had adjusted and now didn\u2019t need to work as hard to burn off the fat.<\/p>\n One of the biggest \u201cproblems\u201d with just running at a steady, moderate intensity pace, is that the calories you burn are limited to the time you spend sweating.<\/p>\n Once your body adapts, the benefit is limited.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why weight training is oftentimes viewed as better than \u201cjust\u201d running. Lifting weights impacts your metabolism by causing mini-micro tears that need to be repaired. That healing process requires energy, which means you\u2019re burning more calories\u2014a process that can sometimes last for nearly two days.<\/p>\n To put it more simply: With cardio, you can slog away for 30 minutes at a lower intensity and burn 200 calories\u2014or you can just eat 200 calories fewer per day. It\u2019s the same thing.<\/p>\n With weight training (or as you\u2019ll soon find out\u2014sprints), that\u2019s not the case. The calories you burn are not limited to what you do in the gym. Meaning a little variety <\/a>might not seem like a big change to your routine, but it will have a dramatic impact on transforming your body.<\/p>\n One of the most important variables with any type of exercise\u2014cardio or other\u2014is intensity. If you look at the average person who runs, they pick a pace that they can maintain for a long duration.<\/p>\n Think about it: When you jump on a treadmill, elliptical, bike or trail, you\u2019re starting with the intent to be there for a while. Maybe it\u2019s 30 minutes or an hour, but your goal is to push at a pace you can sustain, work hard, feel tired, and then go home.<\/p>\n While this is great for endurance, it\u2019s not so great for fat loss.<\/p>\n A study in the\u00a0Journal of the American Medical Association<\/em>\u00a0followed the exercise habits of over 34,000 women and concluded that it took about an hour a day of moderate (3 mph walking) exercising to maintain weight. Notice, that\u2019s not weight loss. And 3 miles per hour is not very fast.<\/p>\n Now imagine if instead of just arbitrarily picking an amount of time to exercise, instead, you focused on pushing yourself to a\u00a0level of difficulty.<\/p>\n If the 3.0 on a treadmill would be a \u201c4\u201d on a scale of 1 to 10 of difficulty, what would happen if you pushed yourself at an 8 or 9 for a shorter period of time?<\/p>\n There\u2019s no need to guess, I\u2019ll tell you: More fat loss<\/a>.<\/p>\n Research at the University of Western Ontario compared short but intense exercise, to long, less-intense cardio. One group perform 4 to 6 thirty-second \u201csprints\u201d while the other group did cardio for 30 to 60 minutes. The results were nothing short of amazing. Despite exercising for a fraction of the time, those in the sprint category burned more than twice as much body fat.<\/p>\n That\u2019s because the process of sprinting causes similar internal changes to your body, such as those that occur during weight training. Your body needs to replenish it\u2019s ATP (energy), convert lactic acid that\u2019s produced during exercise into glucose, and restore your blood hormone levels after such a hard workout.<\/p>\n All of those processes mean your body works harder and burns more fat\u2014both of which don\u2019t happen during aerobic running sessions.<\/p>\n You know what I hate? The calorie- trackers built into cardio machines that inform you how many calories you burn.<\/p>\n They are misleading and oftentimes do more harm than good. You see, a common weight loss mistake has nothing to do with what you\u2019re doing in the gym, but instead how much you think your workouts influence the\u00a0calories you burn.<\/p>\n Believing that the majority of the calories you burn results from exercise is a dangerous misunderstanding. Nothing could be farther from the truth.<\/p>\n Just being alive\u2014sleeping, standing, eating, thinking\u2014requires a tremendous amount of energy. Remember, the machine analogy used earlier? This is why it applies. You burn calories just being alive.<\/p>\n The number of calories you burn at the gym actually pales in comparison to normal functioning and your daily activities that are not exercise based.<\/p>\n Does that mean there\u2019s no need to hit the gym? Of course not. Exercise has many health benefits, but the type of exercise you perform in the gym will influence how many calories you burn outside of it.<\/p>\n Running will burn calories, but sprinting or lifting weights will result in more muscle. And the more muscle you have on your body (no\u2014not the \u201cbulky\u201d muscle of bodybuilders), the more calories your body burns just functioning.<\/p>\n Your muscles are like a 3-year-old child: are active and needy. So it only suits you to have more muscle<\/a> so that you can burn calories without having to work or think about it.<\/p>\n Now that you know muscle is important to your overall weight loss goals, it only makes sense that you would want to do the type of exercises that help this happen the fastest and most efficient ways.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re a lover of the slower, longer duration cardio, I have some bad news: \u201cEndurance\u201d running and walking (longer duration, lower intensity impairs strength and muscle growth, according to research in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research<\/em>.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, even if you increase the intensity and run on an incline, cycling was still better for gaining muscle and burning fat, says researchers from Stephen F. Austin State University.<\/p>\n Again, the point here is not that \u201crunning doesn\u2019t work\u201d or that there aren\u2019t any benefits.<\/p>\n This is about losing weight the most efficient way possible<\/a>. And if you have limited time, you might be better served by cycling (preferably at a high intensity) as opposed to going for a longer walk or jog.<\/p>\n This might sound crazy, so just hang with me: The number on the scale might not be changing because you\u2019re doing too much<\/em> running.<\/p>\n Now, I\u2019ll be the first to admit that this isn\u2019t problem for the majority of people struggling to drop a few pounds. But I\u2019ve worked with many clients\u2014and seen hundreds of other case studies\u2014where fat loss has been stunted by doing too much<\/em>.<\/p>\n Exercise is an undisputable component of a healthy life. However, exercise is still stress of your body. The demands of which impact your hormones, which also control your ability to lose fat.<\/p>\n Specifically, the hormone cortisol is released when you exercise. All cortisol is not bad (despite what late night TV and supplement ads might have you believe), but chronic stress and chronic cortisol can lead to insulin resistance and force you to store belly fat against your best-laid plans.<\/p>\n After all, research published in the journal Hormone Research <\/em>found that long distance running\u2014like that done in endurance runners\u2014causes a sustained increase in cortisol. And this increase in cortisol for long period of times can lead to more inflammation, slower recovery, breaking down your muscle tissue, building up fat, and even harm your immune functioning.<\/p>\n Just as bad, if you\u2019re suffering from too much stress\u2014whether it\u2019s the result of exercises for too many hours or not recovering with the right nutrition\u2014you can harm your thyroid and lower your metabolic rate, making weight loss more difficult.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re doing an hour of cardio per day, that\u2019s more than enough for fat loss. (Remember, this isn\u2019t for endurance training.)<\/p>\n If you start running 2 to 4 hours per day and aren\u2019t losing weight (or maybe evening gaining), you might be best suited to reduce your running frequency, add some resistance training, and see what happens. Odds are, you\u2019ll be pleasantly surprised.<\/p>\n Want help figuring out the best fat loss approach for your body? Sign up for a risk-free month<\/a> of personalized coaching, including assessments that reveal the biggest mistakes with your current plan.<\/p>\n A version of this article originally appeared on SHAPE.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Faster Fat Loss: How to Add Workout Finishers<\/a><\/p>\n Want to Burn More Calories? Add This to Your Fat Loss Plan<\/a><\/p>\nRunning Mistake #1: Your Workout is Always the Same<\/h2>\n
Running Mistake #2: You Go Longer, But Not Faster<\/h2>\n
Running Mistake #3: You Focus too Much on Calories Burned<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Running Mistake #4: You Don\u2019t Try Other Forms of Cardio<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Running Mistake #5: You Run Too Much (Yes, Too much!)<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Why Your Body Is Stuck<\/h2>\n
READ MORE:\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n