If I Train & Run 5k Then How Much Weight Will I Lose

Food
Source: Yummy.com

Either I’m really stupid or there seems to be some global myth going around about weight loss.

Some eminent physicist discovered that you can’t just create mass. Mass (weight) and Energy (calories) are tied. E=MC2. (C is the speed of light incidentally but don’t think we’ll be running that fast).

Essentially if you burn off more calories throughout the day than you consume then you WILL lose weight. It really is that simple. There is no such thing as “big-boned” or “naturally thin” or whatever: consume less than you burn. And THAT is your lifestyle. Some people are “naturally thin” because of how little they eat and are active.

If you do weird stuff like stopping drinking water then your body will compensate by RETAINING water. Just consume stuff naturally. (There will be some bizarre medical conditions out there but they will affect 0.01% of the population so don’t worry about them you almost certainly have not got one, you are most probably normal).

So how much weight will I lose?

Sorry, I’m still avoiding answering that question.

First challenge your assumptions. Do you really want to lose weight (you shout back “YES, of course, I do that’s why I’m reading this!”). But let me try again, “Do you want to change your body shape or lose weight”. Pause. You may well find that you could lose 2 inches around your waist and not lose weight. Muscle is more dense than fat.

If you exercise more you get hungry and you probably will have an increased desire to consume more calories as a result (which is a healthy response).

If your calorie intake stays the same and your calorie stays broadly similar exercise will almost certainly start to make your body become denser and change to a fitter, healthier, stronger shape. I would suggest that you might really want to primarily change your body shape NOT lose weight per se.

“Well, in that case, I’m not going to bother exercising and doing your 5k stuff then. I’ll just go on a diet”.

Of course, that would be up to you. However, consider this. It is surely true that a diet ‘kind of works’ in the sense that diets all expound consuming fewer calories then you burn. However many diets assume your activity level will not change and so you just eat more temporarily-filling, calorie POOR, foods or just simply pseudo-starve yourself. Fine, as I say, that kind of works. BUT what does your body do in response? Well, your body still keeps on burning calories to do the stuff you normally do each day, unfortunately, you might find that it consumes the calories stored in your muscles as well as your fat.

Now the inevitable conclusion to a diet is that you stop it and revert to type. You go back and eat more calories. Unfortunately, your body does not store these new calories as muscle but rather as fat. So you put on fat. So the net effect of your diet is that you will lose muscle and gain fat. You will have a worse body shape than when you started! You didn’t really want that, did you? Oh, and you’ll probably be heavier and more miserable as well.

Diets seem like an easy solution but they aren’t. They fail. Often. Very often. Not always but usually.

What you need is a lifestyle change.

And that will involve a little more exercise. Sorry, no magic bullet. You can stop reading this and try and find one. Plenty of people will say that one exists. But it doesn’t.

I would say, however, that 5k runs are the most time effective way of burning calories in a cheap and (relatively!) enjoyable way.

“But all that exercise is going to make me muscley. I don’t want to end up looking like a German shot-putter”.

Are you really planning to THAT much exercise WOW? I am impressed. To put on lots of muscle you have to do a huge amount of anaerobic exercise and consume masses of protein. Running 5k ain’t going to do that to you. Honest. Never. It just won’t. And I mean never, ever. That is to say, it won’t do that, honest. Just believe me. I’m sure. I really really am sure…positive…definitely. It may well tone you up like some movie star…but you wouldn’t want that, would you!?

Eat healthily: Exercise more. (That sounds terrible)

Oh and by the way, genetics permitting, that’s all you need to do to live longer as well. It’s a bit of a no-brainer really.

So to answer the question of how much weight you will lose. The answer will be that it depends on how much exercise you do and how much food you consume. Not the answer you wanted, I know, sorry, but it’s true.

And as a postscript: the actual amount of calories you burn doing a single 5k is not that great. Bizarrely the longer it takes you the more calories you will consume as you are exercising for longer. Although it is not that simple. Maybe you will burn a few hundred calories and that will translate to a few grammes of weight loss. Hopefully, if you have read this far you will realise that is not the point. Just as it is not the point that if you eat 500 calories a day less then you similarly lose only a trivial amount of weight each day.

Reader-Powered Content

This content is not sponsored. It’s mostly me behind the labour of love which is this site and I appreciate everyone who follows, subscribes or Buys Me A Coffee ❤️ Alternatively please buy the reviewed product from my partners. Thank you! FTC: Affiliate Disclosure: Links pay commission. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

wp_footer()