RUNNING FOR WEIGHT LOSS

 

RUNNING FOR WEIGHT LOSS

weight loss the standard advice is to move more and eat less right if only it were that simple what's up hey a few years back i lost 20 pounds of stubborn fat and since then i have kept it off now at the start of my weight loss journey i shared that i was getting more into running that i was really starting to love running and so naturally this led to a lot of questions you know was it the running that was helping me lose weight was there something else going on long story short there were other things going on i've got videos on them so i'll link those videos down below but i realized i've never made a video specifically addressing running as a way to lose weight so today we're going to talk about it we're going to talk about what i tried where i went wrong what i learned what i recommend if you would like to include running as part of your weight loss journey as a disclaimer this will be a two-part video this is part one of two part two will be coming out soon probably within the next week there's a lot to unpack there's a lot of science there's a lot of experience there's a lot i want to share to help you avoid hopefully help avoid making the same mistakes that i made before i get into it i want to say a huge thank you to bill bar for partnering with me on today's video biltbar has protein bars in 18 different flavors all coated in real chocolate all under 200 calories packed with protein protein plays a huge role in both running and weight loss goals not only is it going to help you with your recovery making sure you can show up consistently for your workouts but it's also going to help keep you feeling fuller longer so i will put a link in the description box down below to save 10 off your next bill bar order whether it's your first time ordering or you're ordering again restock and stocking up on stuff i'd appreciate if you click the link if you check them out otherwise if you're ready to get started make sure to shoot me a thumbs up and let's get into it the part of my weight loss journey i don't often talk about is when i was doing all the things to lose weight but not losing weight to give you some context i gained a lot of weight very quickly and when i clued into that i freaked out hi just gonna jump in here to make it crystal clear that there is nothing wrong with this body if you are looking at these pictures trying to figure out how you stack up compared to the before that after the current the present past like that is not the point one body is not better than the other the real problem was my mindset when i went through this period of rapid weight gain i was going through a very challenging time mentally so not only was i not taking care of myself i would actually say i was doing the opposite of that i was behaving in a destructive way i was acting very impulsively which is out of character for me add to that the fact that i went through what felt like a very fast body transformation and then all of a sudden when i looked in the mirror when i looked at my life i didn't recognize what i was seeing and so against my better judgment i looked for a quick fix i wanted to feel like me again so i was willing to try some pretty crazy things bit more context in order to lose weight you need to be at an energy deficit note a calorie is just a unit of energy just like how an inch or a foot is a unit of distance i will use energy deficit and calorie deficit interchangeably so in order to lose weight you need to be consuming taking in less calories or less energy than you are burning if you can do that you will lose weight this relationship is better explained by the energy balance equation where on the energy inside you have all energy coming in via food and drink and on the energy outside you have bmr or basal metabolic rate the amount of energy you burn just sitting breathing and existing tef or thermic effect of food energy burned breaking down and digesting food tea or thermic effect of activity energy burned through structured or conscious exercise think your cardio weight lifting spin class things of that nature and meat non-exercise activity thermogenesis

 unintentional or spontaneous activity physical activity due to the express purpose of it being for exercise this explains why the standard weight loss advice is to move more and eat less you make one side bigger one side smaller so you can achieve an energy deficit i stocked up on all the bland essentials i cut calories had it worked out regularly up until this point but yeehaw so i completely changed my training style from slow strength training to all intervals all the time and i started running every single day there was no rhyme or reason to what i was doing beyond burning calories the more calories i burns the better which made running kind of perfect it was the fastest hardest most punishing way to burn a lot of calories because that is what i was doing i was punishing myself now you'd think with all this i had to be losing weight right no problem was i couldn't stick with it i would be so burnt out by the end of the week that i would give in i would give up i would eat all the calories back and then some and then the cycle would repeat except each time by the grace of the logic of my dieted brain i was like you know what you know what worked well last time moving more and eating less let's do it again you ate too many calories let's just whoo-hoo but i really felt like what the heck i'm trying to move more i'm trying to eat less but when i move more i feel like i need to eat more but when i eat more then i feel like i need to move more which takes us back to square one so let's talk science when you make changes to one or both sides of the energy balance equation those do not exist in isolation your body knows a 2018 research review looked at the relationship between physical activity and the different mechanisms of appetite control what they found was that at regular or moderate levels of physical activity appetite control was regulated increasing physical activity increased energy expenditure which in turn increased hunger as well as post-meal satisfaction allowing internal hunger and fullness cues to be good predictors of energy needs the relationship between physical activity and energy intake remains regulated within a certain range however as we begin to approach the extremes of physical activity some funny things happen at infrequent or low levels of physical activity appetite control becomes dysregulated energy intake does not match energy expenditure people eat too much which often leads to weight gain the relationship between physical activity and non-homeostatic or non-life-sustaining appetite control is not entirely clear though it's thought there may be a hormonal connection between higher levels of body fat decreased physical activity as well as a tendency to overeat more palatable often higher calorie foods at the other end of the spectrum at very high levels of physical activity appetite control remains regulated but energy expenditure plateaus this observation has been debated it requires more research though there's two proposed models the additive model which suggests the more physical activity you do the more calories you burn whereas a constrained model suggests that beyond a certain threshold of physical activity other components of metabolism adapt to prevent you from burning too many calories overall and so the constrained model suggests that physical activity may only be effective to a point for weight loss beyond that point there would be a diminishing return where doing more activity is not necessarily going to lead you to burn more calories or lead you to lose more weight now this is still all good and well because if you're coming from a place of not doing a lot of activity not being super active and you want to add running into your routine well if you do that consistently that's still going to improve your appetite control it's still going to burn calories and it's still going to make it easier to work towards your goals we just don't want to go into those extremes shifting our focus to eating i mentioned a hormonal connection between increased body fat decreased activity levels and a tendency to overeat the common denominator here is a hormone called leptin think of leptin as an indicator of energy availability this hormone talks to your hypothalamus which can trigger a series of changes throughout your body when we lose fat leptin goes down when we eat less leptin goes down when we're stressed leptin goes down and to throw a real wrench in things at higher levels of body fat you may become less sensitive to leptin signaling meaning your body may experience similar effects to as if leptin were decreased the most notable consequences for weight loss are increased hunger hormones and decreased energy expenditure so not only will hunger increase but a large body of evidence from both human and rodent research suggests the combination of eating less plus stress contributes to overeating more palatable often higher calorie foods as for energy expenditure the area that experiences the most metabolic adaptation is neat similar to what we talked about the constrained model for the relationship between physical activity and energy expenditure your body will decrease unintentional movement in an attempt to avoid burning too many calories unpacking all this weight loss is not as simple as move more eat less i'm sure it is for some people but if you're going into your weight loss journey with even like a hint a smidgen of an all or nothing mindset you gotta be honest with yourself like you gotta know hey i probably am gonna take this to the extreme i'm probably gonna try to move a lot more and eat a lot less and if you do that you're burning the candle at both ends you're double dipping on willpower you're tanking your leptin levels while wreaking havoc on your mental hormonal metabolic health you know there are certain changes that are unavoidable as part of weight loss leptin will go down you will be hungry probably some days at some point your metabolism will adapt but none of these things should ever feel extreme and if you can go into your weight loss journey with your eyes wide open knowing what to expect you can avoid the mistakes the heartache that i experienced and work smarter not harder so my advice first things first if you hate running don't run while running is a great way to burn a lot of calories quick if you hate every second of it it's not going to stick running is a skill so if you're going into this just looking at running as a tool to burn calories you know you can do however much you want to learn how many calories you need rather than a skill you're actually committing to learn chances are you're going to increase your run mileage faster than your fitness or your form can improve greatly increasing your risk of injury as well as your risk of failing at this attempted weight loss which is super discouraging so know that there are many other just as effective but lower impact ways to burn those calories now if you are ready to commit to running as a skill it's something you want to get better at while also working towards your weight loss goals which by the way highly recommend getting an active hobby even if it's not running it's gonna make your weight loss journey so much more enjoyable and weight making it so much easier but i'm gonna go against the move more eat less advice forget about eat less just focus on moving more whether you need to start with a brisk walk a walk run a jog rather than focusing on dieting take this time to focus on your mindset because with weight loss we are in this for the long haul if you want to lose the weight and keep it off now's the time to make those mental shifts stop reducing exercise to being about just burning calories start seeing it as an opportunity stop reducing yourself to just a body and start looking at yourself as an athlete i know this might feel uncomfortable i know this might feel like a label that you've never identified with you've never felt like you maybe fit the mold up especially if previous weight loss attempts have made you feel less than in your body but that negativity is not going to benefit you on this journey based on the science if you just start running best case scenario you lose some water weight right off the bat boom motivating you keep running over time your out of control hunger and cravings start to become more manageable you stick with it and lo and behold because we haven't been on a crash diet we actually have energy to maintain consistency because we're being more active we're staying more active we create that calorie deficit and then we arrive at our weight loss goal without ever feeling like we died this happens for some people now on the flip side some people gain weight when they start running don't freak out it's probably not the running it's probably not muscle gain it's probably not anything physical it's more than likely psychological most people assume they're working out harder than they actually are this has been found true for both cardiovascular and strength based exercise and it's not necessarily a bad thing when you first start running there are so many new sensations that can increase the perceived difficulty of your run beyond what your activity tracker might be telling you this is all good and well but where we start running into issues is when we use the perception of doing a very hard run to justify eating a lot more than we normally would well you don't necessarily have to diet this goes back to those mental shifts we talked about if you continue to reduce food and exercise to just the number of calories they're worth if all you get from those is the caloric value then that's going to keep you stuck in that cycle of checks and balances of having to earn and then burn your food it's a scarcity mindset that doesn't let you ever enjoy food or exercise and quite frankly makes them both a bit irritating if you're just starting running don't worry about carb loading don't worry about the nutrition strategies you hear more advanced runners talking about keep it simple because the reality is if you keep eating exactly the way you are right now even if it's not the perfect picture of health if your energy in stays the same and you can consistently show up for your runs show up for your activity your energy out's going to go up and guess what that's going to create an energy deficit you are going to lose weight it's inevitable it might not be the cookie cutter way or the standard way to do it but it will work at the very least by not starting your weight loss journey with some crazy crash diet and just focusing on making movement a habit your metabolism your hormones your hunger cues are going to be in a better place so that down the road you hit a plateau or you decide you do want to make some dietary changes you are going to be that much better positioned to benefit from those changes that is it for part one of this video i'm like fired up after filming that i'm so excited to film part two part two is going to get into the later stages of my weight loss journey when i finally started to lose weight which would kind of tease that a lot of the changes i made in this video but we're going to talk about them in more depth and kind of show you pictures and stuff like that in the next one as well as talk about how a calorie deficit impacts your running long term so as you actually lose the weight you get leaner you know what impact does that have on performance as well as talk about how i got to where i'm at now where my running performance is improving i've made so many improvements in so many ways since when i started without dieting while maintaining my weight and while actually eating more so i'm really excited to talk about that but after filming this video i also feel like i'm just rambling right now i'm thinking out loud i feel like we need a how to start running video a very practical like point by point how many runs should you do per week how far should you run walk burn what do we do what if we can't breathe um so let me know if you'd like to see that in the comments down below and also let me know i have a bunch of questions for you did anything in this video surprise you was there any science there like oh my gosh i had no idea is there anything that you have experienced that i talked about today and most importantly did this or did it not inspire you to run whether i talked you into or talked about it let me know in the comments down below i'm curious otherwise thank you for watching this video and i can't wait to see you in the next one .