Running is an activity that many tout as an easy and accessible form of exercise – all you need is your body and a place to run. And while it’s certainly accessible, it may not be exactly what you need to reach your goals, especially if your goal is weight loss. 

Let’s take a closer look at why running may not be the best choice of exercise to help you lose weight – and what is.

What’s Required for Sustainable Weight Loss?

First, let’s make sure we understand what exactly is necessary to work toward a weight loss goal in a way that’s sustainable and effective. 

Most importantly, you’ll need to be in a calorie deficit. That is a critical part of losing weight. If you’re eating more than you’re burning, you simply won’t lose weight. That being said, your calorie deficit should come primarily from paying attention to your nutrition.

For a slight increase in calorie burn, however (and for general health!), it’s a good idea to have a consistent workout plan. It’s important that your workout plan is something that you enjoy and something that you can maintain, because sustainable weight loss happens over time, with dedication and consistency.

Lastly, your metabolism plays a huge role in how your body processes food into energy, stores fat, and burns that energy when your body needs it. Certain exercises can help you increase your metabolism, meaning you’ll burn even more calories (while you’re at rest!) and therefore contributing to your weight loss goal – but more on that later!

How Running Can Make It Harder to Reach Your Weight Loss Goal

Now that we understand the main mechanisms that contribute to changes in weight, let’s dive into how running may be hindering your weight loss goal.

Cardio May Burn More Muscle Than Fat

Running is, first and foremost, a form of cardiovascular exercise. Cardio does have a lot of great health benefits, like helping you improve your cardiovascular endurance and having a positive impact on your mental health, but cardio isn’t always the best approach to losing weight.

Likely, if you’re exercising with a weight loss goal in mind and you’re depending on cardio, your body will end up losing muscle and holding onto its fat stores. That probably sounds counterintuitive, but when you’re doing a lot of cardio, your body needs to burn a lot of energy, and muscle is easier for the body to burn than fat!

So, if you’re just doing cardio without supplementing it with strength/resistance training, the body can’t necessarily recognize that it needs to hold onto muscle. You may lose weight – you may see the numbers drop on the scale – but you’re not necessarily burning fat, and you may be burning through muscle that your body needs.

This sort of exercise routine (lots of cardio, no strength training) is what can lead to the phenomenon known as “skinny fat,” or when someone is at a “healthy” weight on the scale, but they have very little muscle, so they have a much higher body fat percentage.

More Sweat Doesn’t Necessarily Mean More Weight Loss

Everyone needs to feel like they’ve absolutely killed their workout every once in a while, and it’s common for us to feel that way after workouts where we’re drenched in sweat and feel like we really put our all into it. But ending up that sweaty and feeling so drained doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing what you need to do to lose weight.

You may even have a tracker that tells you on your sweatiest, toughest days you’ve burned a lot of calories. And yes, being in a calorie deficit is important, but a healthy and sustainable calorie deficit almost never comes from your workouts alone. A calorie deficit that you can maintain should come mainly through paying attention to your nutrition, and moving away from the “How many calories did I burn?” mindset can be your key to success.

Rather than focusing on how sweaty you get or how many calories you burn on a run or during a cardio session, start to focus on what you can do to increase your metabolism. Usually, you can accomplish this by focusing on building muscle through strength training – keep reading, and we’ll get into it!

High Intensity, Stress, & Impact

Running is an exercise that is high intensity, high stress, and high impact. All of these things could prove to be obstacles to your weight loss journey.

Because running is so high intensity, it’s possible that if you’re pursuing this as your only form of exercise, it could be difficult to stick to a routine and do it regularly. If you’re going out on a run and you’re coming home ready to collapse into bed, do you really think you’re going to feel like doing the same thing tomorrow, or the day after?

Running also places a fair amount of stress on the body, especially if you’re going on longer runs. And, by nature, it’s a high impact exercise (think about your feet pounding against the ground with every step). That level of impact isn’t necessary to get in a good workout, and it can also greatly increase the risk of injury (which, if you’re injured, could keep you away from any exercise for some time).

Running Can Increase Your Appetite

Lastly, because running is a cardiovascular exercise and our bodies tend to burn a lot of energy when we’re engaging in cardio, running can make you really hungry. Now, it’s always important to fuel yourself and ensure that you’re getting enough nourishment for your basic bodily processes as well as any exercise you do, but, if you’re trying to stick to a calorie deficit, it can be a lot harder if your appetite is through the roof.

Best Exercise for Reaching Your Weight Loss Goal

We’ve just gone through all these reasons why running likely won’t help you reach your weight loss goals, so… what should you do? The answer is simple: resistance training.

Start lifting weight 2-4 times per week, and you’ll likely see a pretty drastic change in your physique – especially if you haven’t been regularly weight training before or don’t have a lot of experience with exercise! As you start to build up more muscle through strength training, you’ll also start to increase your metabolism, meaning you’ll burn even more calories at rest, all of which will help keep you on track toward your weight loss goal!

If you’re just starting out with resistance training and you don’t have a drastic amount of weight to lose, you may not even need to be too strict about a calorie deficit. You can likely keep your calorie intake the same, except you should pay close attention to how much protein you’re consuming! For the best results, you should be consuming at least 0.8 kilograms of protein for every pound of body weight (if you’re really aiming to build muscle, it’s best to aim for 1.6 kilograms/pound.

If you have a bigger weight loss goal, you can start to introduce a gradual calorie deficit alongside your strength training.

Don’t Forget Cardio Altogether

Even though running isn’t the sharpest tool in your belt for weight loss, it doesn’t mean you should ignore the benefits of cardio altogether. It’s still great exercise to include in your routine, especially for your heart health, and some movement is always better than no movement.

If you’re really focused on weight loss, however, and you want to prioritize strength training, start with a step goal to get your cardio in. Gradually work up to getting 7,500 or more steps every day. That may sound easy, but you’d be surprised – both by how much harder it is to get in 7,500 steps than you think, and how much of a difference it can make.

If you want to try to include more cardio in your routine, incorporate sessions of zone 2 cardio. Zone 2 cardio refers to relatively low intensity aerobic exercise that you can perform at a steady pace. It’s also referred to as low-intensity steady-state cardio. When performing zone 2 cardio, you should still be able to talk and breathe comfortably. Your heart rate (if you have the ability to monitor it) should be sitting at about 60-70% of your maximum heart rate.

The general health recommendation is to perform about 120 minutes of zone 2 cardio per week. If you engage in a cardio session on the same day as a strength training session, try to complete your strength training first for the most benefits!

Start Strength Training Today

You might turn to cardio because it’s easy and accessible, but strength training doesn’t have to be scary – especially if you have the right support. And if you’re really focused on a weight loss goal, it’s truly the best thing you can do to help you get where you want to be.

Working with an online fitness and nutrition coach could be the support that you need to get started and stay on track with strength training and weight loss. If you want to learn more about working with an online coach, read the comprehensive guide. And if you think online coaching is for you, head to the inquiry form so that we can connect one-on-one.

Written by Emily Greffenius. Reviewed by Meghan Farrell, CPT, BSN