Oliver Jogging is one of the most popular forms of leisure sport in this country. In 2012 there were around 5.3 million people in Germany who frequently jogged or did forest or cross-country runs in their free time.
More than 15 million Germans went jogging every now and then ( IfD Allensbach) . In Germany alone, every fourth person jogs regularly. And for a good reason.
What are the advantages of jogging?
For many, exercise should be straightforward and effective . What could be more obvious than running? A sport that you don’t have to learn! Each of us can walk.
Special advantage for working people: You can jog almost anywhere and anytime . Whether at home or when traveling, whether early in the morning or late in the evening – running is always possible.
Expensive contributions for the treadmill in the fitness center don’t have to be. It’s just as good on the doorstep.
Training with a running partner or in a running group is just as fun as it is alone. In addition, the popular sport of jogging is practicable with little equipment . A pair of running shoes, shirt and pants are all you need for jogging.
Jogging has many advantages not only for practical reasons, but also from a medical point of view. Running is an excellent way to keep fit. As a form of endurance training, jogging increases physical endurance and physical performance of the body.
These are good reasons for jogging:
- Jogging strengthens the cardiovascular system
- Jogging has a positive effect on bone density
- Jogging increases performance and can help you lose weight
- Jogging increases fitness and the daily need for calories
- Jogging consumes high calories averaging 700 to 800 kcal
The bottom line is that there is a lot to be said for jogging, an endurance sport. In addition to health, one of the main reasons to start running is to lose weight .
Jogging consumes calories and thereby increases performance . The power turnover is the amount of energy that the organism needs for work activities, such as Jogging.
If more calories are consumed per day than were consumed through food, a negative energy balance results. It is crucial in order to lose weight, because the body gets the “missing” energy from the body’s own energy reserves.
But how many calories are actually burned while jogging?
How high is the calorie consumption while jogging?
Jogging is not just jogging.
The higher the running pace , the higher, as a rule, the calorie consumption.
On the other hand, at a slower pace you can run longer distances and burn more calories overall.
In addition, not everyone burns the same number of calories while jogging. With increasing body weight , as a rule, also the calorie consumption.
The following table provides an overview of different jogging intensities and their Metabolic Equivalent (MET) .
This is a way of calculating the calorie consumption while jogging depending on body weight and the length of time.
The metabolic equivalent determined by the University of South Carolina serves as the basis for the calculation.
How accurate are the values?
The MET values determined by the “Compendium of Physical Activities” for the different levels of activity when jogging are fairly reliable. Most MET values are based on specialist literature and are scientifically sound .
On the Compendium website, in the category “12 – Running” you can read which activity codes are based on already published literature (marked in blue) and which codes were estimated (marked in red).
Regarding the metabolic equivalent, it must be mentioned that this assumes a linear relationship between oxygen uptake and calorie consumption . In fact, the oxygen volume and thus the energy consumption also depend on the nutrients that are used to generate energy.
Fats are more difficult to digest than carbohydrates for the human organism. The body has to use correspondingly more energy to utilize fats.
Fats have twice as many calories as carbohydrates (9.3 kcal per g versus 4.1 kcal per g), but they need more oxygen in order to generate energy. To gain energy from 1 gram of fat, 2 liters of oxygen are required requires, for 1 gram of carbohydrates only 0.84 liters .
Per liter of oxygen, 4.4 kcal are released from fat and 5 kcal from carbohydrates. Or the other way around: To get one calorie from fat about 227 ml of oxygen are required, for a calorie from carbohydrate, however, 200 ml .
Depending on whether mainly fat or carbohydrates are used for energy production, there may be slight deviations between oxygen consumption and calorie consumption . In the extreme case (with pure carbohydrate or pure fat intake) the difference is around 15 percent .
The “Compendium of Physical Activities” was not developed to determine the exact calorie consumption during physical activities of individuals. Rather, it is a classification system that standardizes the MET intensities of physical activity for use in survey research.
The metabolic equivalents given in the table are empirical mean values which do not take into account any individual differences . The values do not take into account body weight, obesity, age, gender, efficiency of movement, or geographical and ecological conditions in which the activity was carried out.
Accordingly, the same activity can lead to high individual deviations in energy expenditure . The actual energy expenditure of a person can, but does not have to be, close to the MET value determined by the Compendium.
The closer the MET is to the basal metabolic rate or the lower the effort, the higher the individual fluctuations. A high MET (e.g. when jogging quickly) has a correspondingly higher significance .
The inaccuracies mentioned must be taken into account when evaluating the calorie consumption when jogging.
Nevertheless, the calculated calorie values are well suited to get an impression of the relative differences in calorie consumption – depending on the running intensity.
Does jogging help you lose weight?
Jogging uses up calories. That is logical, after all, the body is exposed to higher loads when running than when resting. Depending on the intensity, body weight, duration and other factors, more or fewer calories are burned.
In fact, jogging can contribute to a negative energy balance in overweight people and thus support weight loss . The prerequisite for losing weight is that the calorie consumption during the day exceeds the calorie intake.
Running burns calories, but often not as many as one would like. Using jogging as an alibi for unrestrained feasting can quickly puff your pants or hit your hips. Regular jogging can make up for one or the other snack, but very few can afford big calorie jumps .
Most overestimate the calorie consumption while jogging . A woman weighing 70 kg burns around 350 kcal when jogging for half an hour at an average speed of around 10 km / h. That’s not a little, but not enough either to make big leaps.
350 kcal correspond roughly to the calorie content of a slice of Christmas stollen, a 3/4 bar of chocolate, a medium portion of French fries, a blueberry muffin or a lumumba with cream. For a pizza, a doner kebab or a currywurst with rolls you would have to go jogging for an hour.
Running can help you lose weight, but that’s not enough. who only jogging to lose weight , we hardly have long-term success. For a significant weight loss one would have to train highly intensively or cover longer distances every day.
To find the time and the necessary motivation to do this is likely to fall to many.
If you don’t want to spend two hours a day jogging, you can turn the second adjustment screw: The diet . By changing your diet, you can save a lot of calories without spending additional time, which you would otherwise have to work off with extra running units.
Weight loss is a combination of several factors. A low-calorie diet and more exercise are the keys to success. Those who literally run away from the change in diet will most likely have the shorter breath …
More exercise doesn’t just mean jogging more often. The change in lifestyle can also have a positive effect on the calorie account. Just take the bike instead of the car, use the stairs instead of the elevator and take a walk during the lunch break instead of sitting in the canteen.
The calories consumed while jogging can help accelerate weight loss, but they are by no means the tip of the scales.
Anyone who wants to lose weight should not do without exercise . Regular exercise often helps to deal more intensively with nutrition, individual nutrients and calories. One is directly related to the other. Jogging can also raise calorie awareness .
Once you’ve got a feeling for how many minutes you have to walk for a chocolate bar, mulled wine or a handful of chips, you may want to reconsider the small snack or enjoy it more consciously .
Heart rate monitor while jogging creates clarity!
In order not to overestimate the calorie consumption when jogging, it is worth using a heart rate monitor , which shows the approximate calorie consumption of the training session.
My tip: The Polar GPS running watch M400 incl. chest strap. With the heart rate measurement, the calorie consumption while jogging is calculated. By determining the physical strain, running training can be made even more effective and targeted.
I also use this heart rate monitor personally and recommend it especially to beginners who no longer want to be in the dark when it comes to calorie consumption and distance.
conclusion
Too little exercise and the wrong diet are the main causes of obesity. To counteract this, it is important to get moving again at all.
Jogging and exercising in general are great ways to lose weight and stay slim and fit . Running is an ideal sport because the muscles are used intensively . Jogging increases the physical endurance as well as the physical performance of the body and strengthens the cardiovascular system.
Of course, jogging also burns calories. Unfortunately not quite as many as we might wish. The calorie consumption should therefore not be the only incentive to start running. Those who only jog but neglect their diet will rarely achieve significant and permanent weight loss. You would have to spend a lot of time running for that.
Regular jogging can still be oneBe a helpful measure in the weight loss process . Not only because of the calories burned, but also because running leads to a change in lifestyle. Suddenly you start to be interested in calories, nutritional values and the biochemical processes in the body. How many calories does a schnitzel actually have? How are fat deposits created? And how are carbohydrates, protein and fat processed in the body?
Jogging can contribute to a more conscious use of calories , which is worth gold for weight loss. Because many do not even know how many calories they actually shovel in every day. Suddenly the waistband pinches and the weight loss begins. Short-term measures such as crash dieting and two weeks of jog will not be crowned with lasting success. The goal must be to bring about long-term changes in lifestyle .
“Control” is an important keyword in this context. A negative energy balance is required to lose weight. However, this should not be brought about by malnutrition or starvation diets. It is important to eat controlled , to choose high quality food and to consume fewer calories in total than are burned.
Endurance sports, such as jogging, usually also contributes to a more targeted diet . At some point, many runners begin to deal with nutrition issues, to exchange ideas with other joggers and to get suggestions.
Running is a great thing. It supports calorie consumption, but will hardly achieve the desired weight loss effect alone. The calorie consumption when jogging is simply not high enough for that. If you don’t have the time to run several hours a day, an appropriate nutrition program is at least as important.
And don’t forget: jogging should be fun and not just a means to an end. So you stay with the thing in the long term!
