The Truth About Running: Does It Really Help Burn Fat?

Since obesity is linked to many negative health outcomes and conditions, including type 2 diabetes, musculoskeletal issues, cardiovascular disease, and even a heightened risk of colon or breast cancer, most of us are interested in any way we can keep excess weight off.

While nothing affects weight control more than a healthy diet, a close second measure that’s proven to be helpful is getting plenty of exercise.

This is especially true of aerobic exercises such as swimming, cycling, and jumping rope, according to Dr.Michael Fredericson, physical medicine and rehabilitation division director, at Stanford University

But he says that few aerobic exercises offer as many all-around benefits as running – with one of its top advantages being that it can help melt away excess fat. What are the health benefits of running?

What are the health benefits of running? 

While running can help reduce cardiovascular disease risk, improve mental health and lower risks of various types of cancer, explains Brad Schoenfeld, an exercise science professor at Lehman College of the City University of New York.

Fredericson suggests that because running is a weight-bearing exercise, running is also good for building healthy bones “and can strengthen your lower extremity muscles.” These strengthened muscles can also enhance your posture and balance.

Running has also been demonstrated to help enhance the likelihood of a better night’s sleep, and can contribute to enhanced immunity against illness and many chronic diseases. Other studies indicate that running also enhances cognitive functioning and memory as well.

Can running help you lose weight?

However, probably the most sought-after effects linked to running are healthy body weight and fitness levels. A key risk factor for obesity is an underactive lifestyle, which means running is an ideal, very efficient way to burn those excess calories and increase metabolic rate to improve management,” says Dr. Danielle Ponzio, an orthopedic surgeon with Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.

She elaborates that it does so by creating a caloric deficit between the number of calories burned and the number of calories eaten. “Because running can help you burn more calories than you consume, it helps with weight-loss goals,” she says.

Running and other high-intensity exercises have also been proven to suppress appetite through the release of another chemical compound called Lac-Phe, which is composed of lactate and phenylalanine. This way, it can prevent eating too much.

Can running help you lose weight? 

Another way exercise may be helpful for weight loss is by running’s ability to burn fat. That’s because “body fat is a source of energy used both during and after exercise,” says Schoenfeld – and when you expend this energy, “it results in a greater amount of fat burned.”

According to Pontzio, such expenditure of energy not only happens when one runs but after the workout also because of something called excess post-exercise oxygen consumption. “It takes time for the body to replenish energy used from taxing physical activities like running,” she says. “So after a workout, the body burns calories at a little bit of an increased level.”

Another reason is the adrenaline flood you get from when you first begin running because it causes a stimulus of fat to be released from cells, which the movement breaks down.

One qualification to this added impetus, “is that your body becomes accustomed to that stimulus level after a month or two of running,” according to Fredericton; “so you will need to include more HIIT with interval or tempo runs to keep up the process of fat burning.”

Above all, a well-balanced diet should never be ignored. “As the saying goes, you cannot ‘outrun’ a bad diet,” cautions Schoenfeld. “Although exercises like running can assist in weight management, you must perform a lot of exercises to have meaningful effects on body weight,” he says. “That’s why avoiding overeating combined with exercise is the best approach to long-term weight management.”

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