Sean Lerwill, trainer and author of The Body Transformation Manual (www.haynes.co.uk), reveals the best steps forward for those looking to lose weight with running.
- Have a goal and make it specific (i.e. run 5km by Easter without stopping or run the Marathon in May). Once it’s set, tell people – it makes it easier to strive for it
- To lose fat, change your diet. No amount of training can out-train a bad diet.
- Eat protein with every meal – aim for 20g of protein every three hours. Fill up the rest of the plate with veg and a palm-size amount of simple carbs (eg rice, sweet potato, pasta).
- Include resistance training. Running alone will help you lose weigh, but muscle is metabolic tissue that burns energy and burns fat when resting.
- Do multi-joint ‘compound’ squats, press-ups, pull-ups, dips, lunges.
- Drink a litre of water for every 20kg of bodyweight to aid fat burning.
- Sleep 7-9hrs a night for optimal recovery and aiding fat burning.
- Use high-intensity interval training (HIIT), not just long slow runs. Interval training has been shown to promote fat burning far quicker than steady-state running on its own.
