How Running to Lose Weight Works:
You know it helps you lose weight, but do you know how or why?
Your body uses most of the calories you take in every day in order to function — you know, breathing, circulating blood, blinking, walking, talking and so on. Any extra calories get stored in your body as fat (your body’s way to save that energy for another day). It takes about 3,500 extra calories to add 1 pound of fat to your body. Likewise, to lose 1 pound (.45 kg) of fat, you’ll have to burn 3,500 calories more than you typically use. What this means for you is that the more calories you take in, the more energy you need to expend to get rid of them (to keep them from turning into fat).
So where does running fit into all of this, and can it really help you lose weight? To put it simply, running helps you burn more calories, and burning more calories leads to weight loss. But just how many calories does running burn, and how do you get started running to lose weight?
