Whether you once thought of yourself as an avid runner or you never felt quite at home in your running shoes, it might be time to pick up this healthy habit.
Research Shows that Running Decreases Risk of Obesity
More than just burning calories, recent studies have shown that running consistently can have a physiological change in your body that will help boost your metabolism and cause your body to store less energy as fat.
One study published in the Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise surveyed 582 female and 344 male identical twin pairs to compare their average running mileage with their BMI.
The results were that the participants who laced up their running shoes more often than their identical siblings were much more likely to have a lower BMI, having dropped 29.6% for men and a whopping 58.8% for women.
This means that no matter how much you didn’t think you were genetically engineered for running, this simple workout can help keep obesity at bay.
Running regularly has been found to have a long-term impact on how your body processes calories. Just like safe and effective diet pills have been shown to increase your body’s rate at which it expends calories, running can help you burn more calories even for hours after you’ve taken off your running shoes.
How to Simply Incorporate Running Into Your Routine
As with any new habit, simply starting to run can be anything but simple, but if you set your new fitness goals smartly, you’ll be less inclined to fall back into your old ways.
Be Specific: If you set vague goals like “run more,” you’ll give yourself too much leeway and too little motivation to have any follow through. Instead, tell yourself you want to run a 10K or run for 30 min without stopping.
Be Measurable: Whether you’re measuring in time increments or in miles, you should be able to track your progress as well as set weekly and monthly goals to keep yourself motivated.
Be Realistic: If you only have 30 minutes free to workout each day, don’t tell yourself you’ll run for an hour each day. This will just make you feel bad about yourself and you’ll most likely not keep your goals.
Be Time-Sensitive: If you give yourself forever to accomplish a goal, it will most likely take that long. But if you want to get in shape before then, set an endpoint for your goal so that you’ll be able to hold yourself accountable and congratulate yourself when the time comes.
The truth is, that as we age our metabolisms slow and we end up storing many of our foods’ calories as fat, rather than expending them as energy, leading to obesity.
Whether you decide running is right for you, or you’d rather try diet pills that are both safe and effective, it is best to take steps now to decrease your risk of obesity and an unhealthy BMI.