This is when you have to shake things up if you want to lose more weight, improve your running performance, or both.
#HOW MANY CALORIES DOES LESLIE SANSONE 5 MILE BURN HOW TO#
This is because your body has gradually adapted to the running load you are subjecting it to and figured out how to work more efficiently and burn fewer calories. You may also notice that your weight loss has slowed significantly or stopped altogether. Your heart rate will be significantly elevated, you may sweat a lot, and you’ll be noticeably sore after each run.Īfter several weeks or even months of this routine, you should find that your heart rate is lower, you sweat less, and recover faster with much less soreness. When you first start this regimen, your body shows signs of the new stresses it is encountering. Say you run 5 miles (8km) 3 times a week at the same moderate pace. How to Keep Your Body from Working Against YouĪnother important factor for consideration is your body’s amazing ability to adapt to repeated stress, like running the same distance or pace over and over. Some will also ask for your height and gender as these give a more complete picture of you as a runner and help personalize the calorie rates used in calculation. This is why running watches, cardio machines at the gym, and online calorie calculators all typically ask for your weight. Whether that weight comes in the form of a large, muscular frame or that extra body fat we are all trying to shed, you can’t escape the fact that bigger runners burn more calories when all other factors are equal. The simple reason behind this is that a heavier body requires more work to move. If you want to move beyond general numbers and broad averages, you are going to have to factor in your weight. The Bigger You are the Faster You BurnĪs I alluded to earlier, we don’t all burn calories at the same rate. Plus, you don’t need a gym membership or expensive equipment.
We can consider moderate to high-intensity running and cycling to be more or less even in terms of calorie-burning potential.Īs you can see, running is as good or better than the most popular weight-loss alternatives. Note: Since we had to use 2 different sources for our run and cycling data, I am considering the 25 calories/hour difference between the highest values to be statistically irrelevant.
Using this calculator at, we get the following numbers for comparison. Unfortunately, the Mayo Clinic data does not include a range for cycling, a common alternative to running and a great cross-training option. Sure running burns a lot of calories, but how does it stack up against your other fitness options? If we take a look at the same Mayo Clinic data for an average 200-pound person we used to get our running numbers, we find the following: Online calculators, like this one, can provide you with a more personalized picture of how many calories you burn at your current speed and distance. You need to ease into running, or you will spend more time dealing with injuries and missed workouts than you will burning calories. Now, if you are new to running, I am certainly not advocating going out and running for an hour straight in the name of weight loss. When you consider that many recommended daily diets contain 2000 to 2500 calories, and a recreational runner can burn 700+ calories in just one hour, it’s easy to see why people gravitate toward running when they want to lose weight. These numbers are similar to what you will find on other reputable sites and will serve well for illustrative purposes. For now, we will make things easier by looking at calorie burn from a general perspective.Īccording to the Mayo Clinic, a 200-pound (91kg) runner burns about 755 calories per hour at 5mph (8km/h) and 1074 calories per hour at 8mph (12.9km/h). The reason is there are several personal factors that influence the rate at which any individual runner burns calories, and I’ll address a few of the biggest later on. Spoiler alert: I can’t give you an exact answer to this question. That begs the question… Just How Many Calories Does Running Really Burn? And you can do it anywhere-just open your front door and head out.īut the real draw of running, when it comes to weight loss, is all those precious calories it burns. It’s easy-just put one foot in front of the other and go. It’s cheap-the only real equipment you need are running shoes (even this optional for some). There are plenty of great reasons people turn to running when they want to lose weight.