How Many Calories Are Burned During Running?

Calories measure the amount of energy you expend during an activity and the potential energy in the foods you eat. You may want to know if running is the best use of your time in your pursuit of weight loss. Perhaps you're curious as to just how hard you worked during your long training run. The calories you burn while running will give you insight into both of these.

Significance

Knowing how many calories you burn during a run helps you plan your caloric intake for the day. For example, if you run to lose weight, you can learn how many calories you burn during the day to be sure you consume fewer than that total in order to lose weight. On the other hand, if you're training for a race, knowing the calories you burn can help you figure out how much you should eat during and after a run to maintain your energy levels and weight.

Basal Metabolism

Your basal metabolic rate is the number of calories you burn at complete rest. This number tells you how much you need to eat to maintain your weight if you stay in bed all day. Your basal metabolism affects the number of calories you burn while running. The more calories you burn at rest, the more you burn while running. For example, a 150 pound man with a high basal metabolic rate will burn more calories on the same run as a 150 pound man with a low basal metabolic rate.

Net Calorie Burn

Your net calorie burn refers to the number of calories you burn total during a run minus your basal metabolic rate. For example, if you burned a total of 300 calories on a one hour run and your basal metabolic rate is 60 calories and hour, your net calorie burn for your run is 240 calories. The net calories you burn is the true number of calories used from running. RunnersWorld.com offers the net calorie equation of .65 x your body weight and the total calories burned as .75 x your body weight. These equations give you calories burned per mile. So if you weigh 200 pounds you will burn a net of approximately 130 calories and a total of approximately 150 calories per mile that you run.

Considerations

Different factors affect your basal metabolic rate and therefore the total calories you burn during a run. Calculators usually only consider weight and gender, so they will only be an estimate. Other factors that affect the number of calories you burn include age and your percentage of body fat. As you get older, your metabolism slows down, so you burn fewer calories at rest and during exercise. Also, because a pound of muscle uses more calories than a pound of fat, the leaner you are, the more calories you need.

Pitfalls

Training, weight loss and nutrition can be a science, but unless you love crunching numbers and keeping records, trying to track every calorie in and out can lead to burnout. Being an athlete means learning to listen to your body. The more you run, the more you'll be able to tell when you need food during a run and during the day. You'll recognize the feeling of your tanking blood sugar before bonk that signals you need more food. Let calorie calculators be a tool, not your only resource.