Top Ten Ways to Burn More Calories Everyday
By Rick Morris
A common goal of distance runners, particularly new runners, is weight loss. Distance is a very efficient way to burn calories and lose weight. You will burn somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 to 120 calories per mile, depending upon how efficient you run, your running intensity and the terrain. There are few activities that can match or beat the calorie burning potential of running. As good as running is for calorie burning there are still ways to can improve your calorie burning potential. Here are our top ten ways to burn more calories every day.
Build a Bigger Engine
In these days of high fuel prices we have learned to stay away from the muscle cars with the big engines. Those bigger engines burn more fuel. In the same vein, a bigger biological engine burns more calories. You build a bigger engine by building bigger muscles. Do full body strength training on a consistent basis. You will soon have a big, calorie guzzling body.
Hit the Gas
Keeping with the automobile metaphor, you also want to keep the speed down in your car to lower fuel consumption. Your body is just the opposite. Running faster burns more calories. Adding in some weekly speed work will not only burn more calories during your workout but will also improve the speed of your easier runs. You will burn more calories in all your workouts.
Road Trip
This is obviously a no-brainer, but running six miles burns twice as many calories as running three miles. Hit the road for progressively longer weekly long runs. These long endurance runs burn a lot of calories and improve your overall fitness.
Be a Trailblazer
Running on trails not only provides you with some wonderful scenery and variety, but also throws some changing terrain at you. The ups, downs and sometimes unstable running surface forces you to work harder and burn more calories.
Go For a Cruise
Medium length, steady state runs are many times performed at a moderate to moderately hard pace that is often called cruise pace. It’s called that for a reason. When you get into the nice, steady rhythm of cruise pace you literally feel like you are cruising along the ground. This moderate pace is usually just slower than lactate threshold pace, which is a great pace for improving your speed endurance. If you are able to run longer at faster paces you will burn many more daily calories.
Head For the Hills
Distance running legend Frank Shorter once called hill running, speed work in disguise. Running hills incorporates many more muscle fibers than level ground running. More working muscle fibers equal more calories burned. So, don’t fear the hills, embrace them.
Running On Empty
This one goes against the advice of most nutritionists and coaches, but I have found it is very effective at improving your ability to burn fat. Next time you go for a morning run, skip breakfast. If you run in state of depleted carbohydrates your body learns to process fat for fuel more efficiently. Keep these runs short to moderate in length. Doing a long run with no carbs can result in the muscle loss, which would be counterproductive to weight loss and be sure to replace those carbs right after your run.
Rise and Shine
Speaking of morning runs, watching the sunrise while you run is a great idea for weight loss. A morning run gets your metabolism in high gear and sets a healthy habit for the reminder of the day. You will burn more calories and probably eat healthier because you want to maintain your healthy start.
Get Race Ready
If you have problems with daily running motivation, consider training for a race. A marathon would be a great choice for calorie burning, but any race distance will work. Training for a race will give you some extra motivation for those speed sessions and lactate threshold training.
Carb Up
One of the most common mistakes made by weight loss runners is avoiding carbohydrates. Complex carbs is the fuel of choice for your body. Without a sufficient amount of daily carbohydrates you body will resort to catabolic activity to get them. You body will actually eat its own muscle. The resulting decreased muscle mass will reduce the size of your engine (metabolism) and make calories burning even harder. So keep those complex carbs coming in along with the lean proteins and essential fats.
