If you can insist on it as a long-term, fixed exercise and combine it with diet, aerobic jogging is effective in helping to lose fat, but the effect comes slowly and requires patience and perseverance. This is also a relatively healthy way to lose fat. On the contrary, just running on a whim and stopping for a break in the middle is basically useless, and it will be offset by a casual meal.
Single running distance, time, heart rate, pace, weekly/monthly running volume, and diet control are all key factors that affect the effect of fat loss. Only by working together at the same time can the goal of fat loss be achieved.
When using aerobic exercise to remove fat, is “aerobic” enough?
Aerobic metabolism mainly supplies energy by burning/decomposing fat, while anaerobic metabolism only consumes sugar. If you want to exercise for the purpose of losing fat more efficiently, it is actually better to use aerobic base training or anaerobic-assisted exercise mode.
Walking is a pure aerobic exercise, but it seems difficult to achieve the effects we usually want from aerobic exercise just by walking.
Because the body’s aerobic metabolism and energy supply are very slow at this time, the efficiency of fat burning and oxygen utilization is not high, and the body’s muscles are hardly exercised effectively.
What most of us refer to as aerobic exercise is exercise that can be sustained for a long time and the body reaches a certain intensity – that is, the aerobic metabolic system operates efficiently, but the intensity of exercise is not high enough to trigger the anaerobic metabolic system. Degree.
During anaerobic exercise, a large amount of glycogen in the body is consumed, which also accelerates aerobic metabolism and burns fat for energy. And when the body has experienced a certain intensity of aerobic + anaerobic exercise, the body’s metabolism will still be at a high value after stopping exercise, and will slowly return to the resting state.
The current view in mainstream sports circles, whether aerobic or anaerobic, is to pursue higher efficiency——
For example, in endurance sports such as marathons, runners will do a lot of aerobic jogging to make their bodies better able to burn fat to provide energy for running; for example, sports for the purpose of losing fat will take into account both aerobic and anaerobic combinations.
How do I know if I’m doing aerobic or anaerobic exercise?
How to tell whether an individual is aerobic or anaerobic? We need to incorporate personalized body indicators to differentiate. For example: heart rate or metabolic equivalents (METs).
Take heart rate as an example. Everyone has their own heart rate zone, which means that everyone has different values from the lowest heart rate to the highest heart rate. When you are in your aerobic heart rate zone*, the exercise you do at this time counts as aerobic exercise. But this usually requires wearing a device that can monitor your heart rate, such as a stopwatch or heart rate belt.
*Some labels labeled “aerobic heart rate zone” specifically refer to the heart rate zone for optimal aerobic fat burning efficiency.
Many people who have just started running don’t know whether they can persist and are not ready to buy equipment. It is difficult to understand what kind of intensity is considered “aerobic jogging”. Here we also teach you a simple method:
When you jog, you can speak a complete sentence smoothly without being out of breath, or you can easily maintain a conversation with your companions. This is aerobic jogging.
One thing to say here is that the “aerobic running” of professional athletes or the “aerobic running” of advanced runners is completely “anaerobic” for most people. So this is a very personal data, especially for those who have just started exercising. Don’t compare with others, just combine your own status and let yourself improve step by step.
How to use jogging to lose fat?
It varies from person to person, and everyone’s fat burning efficiency is different.
Fat burning refers to the process in which the human body generates heat by oxidizing and decomposing fat with the help of oxygen. This usually occurs when the human body performs aerobic exercise. Different intensities of aerobic exercise consume different proportions of fat.
When doing aerobic jogging, you can lose fat to a certain extent, but different body shapes, weights, running time and intensity will also affect the body’s fat burning efficiency. You can roughly follow the report from Harvard University “Comparing the calories burned by people of three different weights during 30 minutes of exercise in different events” as the standard.
For example: when a 70 kg person runs at a speed of 8 km/h for 30 minutes, he can consume 298 calories.
In addition, aerobic jogging can produce other benefits for the human body –
● Improve endurance, aerobic capacity and strength: Regular aerobic exercise can effectively enhance the health of the heart and lungs as well as the strength of bones and muscles. This can improve overall physical fitness. The most intuitive feeling is that you can run longer and faster .
● Improve immunity: Aerobic exercise can activate the body’s immune system and make it less susceptible to minor viral diseases; it can also reduce the risk of obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, etc.
● Improve symptoms: Aerobic exercise can effectively reduce blood pressure, control blood sugar, reduce pain and improve function in arthritis patients.
Therefore, for those who want to use aerobic jogging to lose fat, what should they pay attention to to improve fat burning efficiency?
● Combination of aerobic jogging and HIIT (high-intensity interval exercise)
HIIT and aerobic jogging are running at different intensities. When running at different intensities, the proportion of energy produced by the body through burning carbohydrates and fats will also be different.
HIIT: When exercising at high intensity, the human body relies more on decomposing carbohydrates to provide energy, and fat only provides a small part, which can consume more calories in a short period of time and produce an afterburn effect (EPOC) after the exercise is over, continue Burn calories, research shows: The afterburn effect of HIIT is better than aerobic jogging.
Aerobic jogging: During aerobic jogging, the body will consume more fat as fuel, but it will take a longer time to burn calories, which is why it is usually recommended that people jog for more than 30 minutes.
Aerobic jogging consumes fewer calories overall, and burns a higher proportion of fat; while HIIT burns less fat than jogging, but it is better at consuming more calories.
Since the two types of exercise have different effects on fat loss, you can consider combining the two.
It is a more reasonable choice to complete HIIT 1-2 times a week. The duration and number of repetitions depend on your own level. Do not exercise excessively, which will cause physical fatigue. This will not only affect the effect of exercise, but may also affect daily life;
At other times, you can arrange 1-2 aerobic jogs for more than 30 minutes. No matter what kind of exercise you do, you need to spare one or two days to give your body time to rebuild and recover.
● Change eating habits
People tend to eat more calories after exercising.
A study from the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness found that after exercise, most people tend to overestimate the calories burned during exercise, leading to eating more calories.
Researchers asked 16 subjects who completed aerobic exercise to estimate the calories they burned and eat the estimated calories. They found that the subjects overestimated their calorie burn by three to four times and ate two times the actual calories burned. to three times.
Therefore, when losing fat, you need a certain amount of exercise and changes in your daily eating habits to achieve the effect of fat loss.
If the daily diet is not controlled, it is easy to cause no significant change in weight, or even increase. This is also one of the obstacles that most people encounter when losing fat. Of course, using hunger strike plus exercise is also wrong.
The diet when losing fat generally meets a few principles: less oil, less salt, less sugar, try to choose vegetable oils and olive oils; a balanced diet with diversified combinations.
You can develop personal eating habits according to the healthy eating board of Harvard School of Public Health and your own needs. This is a simple combination method that is suitable for most people. It can also ensure nutritional intake and pay attention to the calories of each food.
Non-starchy vegetables and fruits account for 1/2, such as broccoli, carrots, bananas, etc.
Whole grains and cereal products account for 1/4, such as barley, wheat, brown rice, etc.
Protein sources account for 1/4. Fish, poultry, and nuts are all excellent sources of protein. Be careful to eat less red meat, such as pigs, cattle, and sheep.
Consume healthy vegetable oils in moderation and avoid sugary drinks.
For fat loss, aerobic jogging can naturally play a certain role, but it requires long-term persistence. At the same time, it can be combined with changes in eating habits and other exercise methods such as HIIT to achieve the greatest fat loss effect.
