How Much Should I Jog to Lose Weight?

How Much Should I Jog to Lose Weight?
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Jogging is a good form of cardiovascular exercise, not as intense as running but offering more benefits than simple walking. Jogging is also an excellent way to help manage your weight. To get the biggest weight loss benefits out of jogging, consider the intensity, frequency and duration of your workouts.

Jogging

Jogging is an excellent form of exercise for weight loss because it involves moderate intensity activity. Your body burns calories from two sources, from glycogen or from fat. Moderate intensity activities, including jogging, burn more calories from fat than higher intensity exercises. Consider moderate intensity to be from 50 percent to 70 percent of you maximum heart rate. Max heart rate for males is 220 minus age. Max heart rate for females is 206 minus 88 percent of age.

Frequency And Duration

How often and how frequently you jog will have a significant impact on your weight loss benefits. You should jog at least three to five times per week. Each session should last at least 20 minutes. Your body does not start burning calories from fat as soon as you start jogging. As you warm up and your heart rate reaches a consistent level, then your body begins burning fat efficiently.

Heart Rate Monitor

A heart rate monitor is essential to burning fat when jogging because the best jogging pace relies on information about your heart rate. Heart rate monitors are simple devices that you attach to the wrist and sense your pulse, displaying the information on a simple LCD display. Some heart rate monitors will also have calorie counters that allow you to track how many calories you are burning while jogging. To compare calories burned for weight loss, consider that there are 3,500 calories in one pound of fat.

Considerations

For weight loss, consider adding a diet that includes reduced caloric intake and balanced nutrition to your jogging routine. While exercise can significantly contribute to weight loss, it is only half the solution. Cutting 500 calories from your daily diet can help you drop an extra pound per week. In addition to diet, consider setting a goal for your weight loss. Goals will help you stick to your jogging routine and your dietary changes.

References

Article reviewed by Allen Cone Last updated on: Mar 2, 2011

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