LOSE 5 POUNDS WITHOUT DIETING
Forget the diet shakes, a few tweaks to your fitness routine will make you lighter.
By Martha Schindler
PUBLISHED 04/22/2003
As a runner, you're already in on the best-kept secret of weight-control. "Running is one of the most efficient ways to burn calories," says Cathy Feiseler, M.D., a sports medicine physician at the Cleveland Clinic. How efficient? Depending on your gender, body size, and running pace, you can incinerate between 500 and 1,300 calories per hour of running--a number that blows most other forms of exercise out of the water.
But being a runner doesn't automatically ensure you a greyhound-like physique. Plenty of you are carrying around some extra pounds you'd just love to get rid of. One way to do this is to add a few more miles to your program, but there are plenty of other strategies as well, and none of them involve dieting. With this 4-week plan, you simply focus on the workouts--with a few sensible lifestyle and eating tips thrown in for good measure.
A Plan of Action
To lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you take in. That should be totally doable with our program, which calls for six workouts per week--2 days of strength training, 3 days of shorter-distance runs, and 1 day of longer distance.
Figure on a 10-percent-per-week increase in your weekly mileage, to be divided evenly between one of your short runs and the long run. In other words, if you're now running 20 miles a week, your first week's increase will be 2 miles total. Add 1 of these miles to a shorter run, and the other to your long run.
The plan calls for similar increases in the strength-training workouts. As for the calories you'll be burning, remember that your total will depend on differences in gender, pace, and body size. (Note: As a rule, because of physiological differences, men are better calorie-burners than women, and larger people normally burn more calories during a given exercise bout than smaller people.)
Lastly, when following the plan, be as consistent as possible: Don't eat like crazy and sit around all week, then try to make up for it by fasting and running 20 miles over the weekend. On the other hand, don't go nuts trying to hit your mark each day either. If your mileage falls a little short, or you don't lift as much as is called for, that's no big deal. Just try to make up for it later in the week.
Time to Get Started
Below is a sample week from your 4-week plan, but feel free to personalize this schedule. For example, if Saturday is a better day for you to run long, do that, and switch your day off to Sunday.
Monday: Shorter distance
Tuesday: Strength train
Wednesday: Shorter distance, extending it by half your weekly mileage increase. (Note: If you're increasing your mileage by 4 miles this week, increase both your Wednesday and Sunday runs by 2 miles.)
Thursday: Strength train
Friday: Shorter distance
Saturday: Rest day
Sunday: Longer distance, extending it by half your weekly mileage increase
