Running vs. Walking for Weight Loss

If you are looking to lose weight, you have a lot of options, but two of the most common things people do is walk or run. Walking and running have their place in fitness. Both burn calories and lower body fat. Both are convenient activities that require no equipment. You just need a good pair of running shoes. You can do them anywhere, and you get the benefit of nice scenery and sunshine. However, for weight loss purposes, running is obviously better than walking.

While you will lose roughly the same amount of calories with the same distance covered, you lose more calories running than walking at the same amount of time. For instance, you lose more or less a hundred calories per mile walking or running. But you cover a mile faster running than walking. So within a specified amount of time you burn more calories when you run.

Walking burns roughly 300 calories per hour. But running on the average burns about 800 calories an hour. That is quite an advantage, and the faster you run, the more calories you burn.

One of the great things about walking is it burns fat, as all low intensity workouts do. The body tends to metabolize fat on low intensity activities. So this may seem as though walking is the best way to go for fat loss. However, you actually burn more than twice the amount of calories you burn running than walking. Eventually, that leads to greater fat loss.

Another factor that makes running more effective for weight loss is its ability to affect your appetite. An exercise as intense as running produces high levels of peptide YY, a hormone that suppresses appetite. Walking does not prompt the body the produce this hormone. As a result, a session of running suppresses hunger, which means you don’t tend to overeat. On the contrary, walking makes you feel hungry afterwards. One reason could be due to your body telling you you have replace burnt fuel. Without a hunger-suppressing hormone to counteract this, you tend to eat, and usually you eat more than you what you had previously burnt.

For this reason, runners tend to lose more weight than walkers, regardless of whether both types of people cover the same mileage. Runners tend to have smaller waist, lower body fat, and more toned muscles.

The catch is running poses greater risk of injury. This isn’t hard to understand. Running puts more impact on the joints, especially for unfit beginners. This is why you shouldn’t put on your sneakers and start covering 10 miles in one hour if today is your first day. Running may not be good for you, too, if you recently had an injury or you’re obese.

The point of this article is, while you may choose running over walking for fat loss, you also have to take into account certain factors. Are you fit for running? Have you been running for a while? If so, by all means, choose running over walking, because the benefits certainly outweigh risks in this case.

However, choose walking if you’re a newbie, recovering from an injury, or significantly overweight. It burns calories and conditions or reconditions your body, especially your feet and legs, for fitness.  

Tips for Eliminating or Reducing Bloating

So you have been working out and dieting religiously, but you still have a gut that’s sticking out, and you don’t seem to know what exactly is the problem. Well, I hear you loud and clear because I am right there with you. That is why I started researching this issue. Bloating may be the problem. It is a common cause of abdominal distention. That belly pouch may be due to gas inside your digestive tract. How can you get rid of that?

Drink more water.

Constipation is a common cause of bloating. When waste products from digestion spend more time in your colon, they tend to build up gas. There are many ways to treat constipation, and one is by drinking more water. Watch how many glasses of water you get to drink in a day. A lot of people drink only 4-5 glasses of water in a day, and they don’t even realize it.

Eat more fiber.

Fiber encourages better colon health. It’s what you need to help your colon eliminate waste, which may otherwise accumulate in the gut and cause bloating. Men are recommended to eat 38 grams of fiber a day. Women should eat 25 grams of fiber a day. Where to get fiber? Whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and nuts contain enough fiber. However, you may want to skip on beans and cruciferous vegetables (broccoli and cauliflower) because they build up gas upon digestion.

Exercise.

Exercise has many benefits, including better digestion, more active GI tract smooth muscles, and better elimination of waste. People with sedentary lifestyle are more prone to bloating than active people. You don’t need gym membership. Walking or jogging for 30 minutes a day for 5 days a week is all you need.

Find out if you have food allergies or intolerance.

Bloating may be a symptom that your digestive system doesn’t like certain types of food. Many people who suffer from bloating are lactose intolerant, and they don’t know it. When you’re lactose intolerant, your digestive system lacks the enzyme necessary for breaking down lactose in milk and dairy products. That means they will have to remove dairy products from their menu. Many people also have digestive tracts that don’t respond well to ingestion of whole grains. The result is bloating. Your physician will help you rule out food allergies and find out which foods may be triggering bloating in your case.

Nix soda.

Carbonated drinks are cool, but they introduce gas into your gut. It isn’t hard to understand how that leads to bloating.

Eat slowly.

What happens when you eat too fast? You swallow a lot of air. You don’t realize that, but not chewing your food properly means you get to swallow trapped gas in between improperly chewed food fragments. Also, proper chewing allows saliva to partially digest starches and your teeth to properly grind food. Mechanical digestion is an important phase of digestion, and it happens in the mouth. Improperly chewed food means your stomach would have to exert more effort in digesting the food you ate.

Reduce salt intake.

Sodium is a common bloating culprit. Your daily sodium intake should not exceed 2300 mg. The problem is no one really bothers to check how much sodium they eat in a day. One solution is by reading food labels. You get too much sodium from canned food and junk food.