Want to run circles around fat loss?

Well stop fucking running then is my answer to that question. Anyone who watches steps with Azzy (Wednesday mornings 5.30am on the Ginger girls live page), will know I’ve been on a bit of a crusade recently against running, and I feel this warrants a blog to help me explain myself a little bit more, then also take the opportunity to give some extra tips to shed the fat!

Well hello strangers, its only me again, back with another blog to get the cogs turning and give you some food for thought today. I know its been a while, but the aforementioned step videos seem to be the best way to get rid of my word vomit recently, and although they are great for making points, I feel this subject is important enough that I can once again sit down at my laptop and drop some knowledge bombs on you!

Let’s start with some positives, because giving a balanced argument is going to be important, and I don’t want you all to get the wrong impression! Running can be great. I’d go as far to say that it’s THE best exercise you can do to improve your cardiovascular fitness, and when it comes to longevity, cardiovascular fitness outshines everything else. For example, let’s say we have 2 subjects, lets call them Paul and Barry, Barry loves a drink and smokes 10 fags a day, where as Paul has a good diet, doesn’t drink and doesn’t smoke, Barry however loves running and has good cardiovascular fitness, Paul is a lazy cunt! Studies show almost unanimously that Barry will outlive Paul as he has better cardiovascular fitness regardless of his other life choices, but wait right there old timers, let’s not get your running shoes out just yet. Just because running is the best for improving your cardio, it is not your only option! So we must also consider the negatives of running as well.

My favourite little line recently has been that I need to run 14 5km runs a week to burn 1lb of fat. The reason for this, is my watch will register 500 calories for running a 5k, half what your watch says because it lies to you (don’t even get me started on what a treadmill says), so let’s call it 250 calories for a 5k. It is widely accepted that you need a 3500 deficit in your calories to lose 1lb of bodyweight (notice I didn’t say fat), which means I must burn 250 calories 14 times to burn 1lb! Anyone who’s been for a run knows what it takes out of you, if you love the feeling, keep running! If it helps with your mental health, keep running! I will never tell anyone to stop doing what they love, I will only present the facts, but at the end of the day, running a total of 70km a week is elite runner status, and although you might put up some big numbers in the early weeks of your program, good luck maintaining that over the course of your weight loss journey, and then for as long as you want to keep the weight off! The alternative of course is to just go for a walk, for me 1000 steps is roughly 1km, so 10km a day is 10,000 steps, funnily enough (although it takes longer), it burns roughly the same number of calories as your moving your body over the same distance, you’re just taking a longer time to do it. 10,000 steps a day equals 70km covered in a week, which is my 3500 calories burned. Walking is also a lot lower impact on your body and doesn’t require such an intense energy requirement due to the difference in effort levels, this is where my main problem with running comes into it.

Running burns off muscle just like it burns off fat, it’s why you’ll never see a bodybuilder running (we just can’t afford to lose any leg muscles), so although you might be seeing some changes in the scales at a faster rate because of running, there’s a good chance that running, along with the calorie deficit that you’re in, is burning your muscle. This means your bodyfat percentage (which is what you really care about) will be staying the same, or in a lot of cases, increasing! This is how we end up skinny fat! We all know that the scales wouldn’t matter if what we see in the mirror looks good, and you’ll be happy with that if we can get to a better bodyfat percentage.

A study from October 2023 compared around 180 people across 3 groups, where all participants consumed the same calories and macro nutrients, one group did just weights, one group did just cardio, and one group did a mixture of the 2! In dead last for the worst drop in body fat percentage was cardio, wouldn’t have been a good blog if it was any different, and as what may come as a surprise to you all, edging the win was weights alone. This proves exactly what I stated in the previous paragraph. So let me tell you why.

A 5km takes me roughly 30 minutes and burns 250 calories, about half an hour after the run calories stop burning, 30 minutes in the gym will burn about 100 calories (I’ll usually do around an hour however), but what happens with weights, is your body keeps burning calories and using the food you eat more effectively for around 48 hours after you finish, leading to a much greater number of calories burned per session! The weights also help to maintain the muscle mass you have, meaning the weight that is being dropping is purely fat (especially if you have a high protein diet, just like we recommend at Gingers). Before you get worried about getting too big and 'manly' (as if that was a bad things), you’ll only maintain the muscle you have if you’re in a calorie deficit, so lets just put that to bed. Muscle takes a lot of calories to maintain itself, so the more you have, the greater your maintenance calories are! Mine is 4500 calories just for reference, any less then this and I will lose weight.

Once again I have to say, that if you like running, then you should run, if you want to run a marathon, you need to fuel your body and not do the training and the marathon in a calorie deficit or you will end up getting injured or feeling ill all the time, you damage your muscles a lot doing this. Studies show that even running distances of 5km will cause a decrease in muscle mass in the legs, so choose your cardio wisely. High intensity cardio with short bursts and rest periods (just like our fantastic classes) don’t have these same adverse effects.

I hope this blog finds you well and can be received well, I don’t have a vendetta against running, I just want people to do it for the right reasons, as it hurts me to see people force themselves through it because they think it’s the best way, or in some cases the only way, to help them lose bodyfat.

Big Love,

Az

P.s. Classes that use dumbbells doesn’t count as lifting weights, this is just cardio