Find A Running Partner

Whether you've started jogging with a buddy for fun, to lose some body mass or just to get fitter, it can be disheartening when the scale starts rising regardless of all the work you’re doing. But we’re here today to tell you not to worry, sometimes weight gain can be good for you. Are you new to running but finding yourself a few ounces or pounds heavier? Don’t worry. A recent study discovered that a new workout regime can mean there’s some mild inflammation in your body and some small tears in the fibres of your muscles. Because of the tears, your body may retain extra water to assist with what your body will believe is an injury, or your body might retain more water than usual in your muscles to help with contractions. Water weight can be responsible for up to 3 pound of new weight after you start working with a fresh regime but don’t worry, this is healthy and it will drop again within 3-4 weeks. But, what if you’re used to jogging regularly and have suddenly started to gain weight? Well, if you and your jogging buddy have recently started aiming for longer distances, increasing your speed or choosing to run up hill, then your body will be adapting to the new muscle stress and the demand on muscle contractions, and therefore you may gain a few extra pound of water weight too! Again, this is healthy and nothing for you to worry about. But water weight isn’t the only way you can weight while jogging, there’s also the possibility of new muscle. It’s a myth that you can’t gain muscle from cardio activities such as jogging or running. While we understand that big muscles aren’t associated with these activities, the latest research suggests that jogging can help create bigger muscle mass but after a longer period of time than typical muscle building. It takes about two months to see muscle gain from increased cardio activity. But, if you’re gaining weight quicker than that, it is likely to be water weight or maybe, even what you’re eating. Both of which can be healthy! With that being said… how is your diet? Jogging and running can be one of the best calorie-destroying cardio-workouts out there. But if you think the new exercise means you can eat anything (including all the sugar you want), then there’s still a chance you could be gaining weight. As you hopefully know already - if you want to lose weight, you need a calorie deficit which is where you have to burn more calories than you consume. By doing this, your body then uses fat it has stored as fuel. But if you have a calorie surplus, which means you're taking in more calories than you burn, your body will store those extra calories as body fat — and that translates to weight gain. So, what do you do if you think you’re gaining weight this way? You could choose your food more carefully, specifically choose food with lower calorie counts, or give yourself a different post-run treat. It’s easy to choose a great food item after a long run but your body might not always need all of these calories. You deserve something special after a run but why not consider having a bath, reading a book, or giving yourself alone time to do whatever you enjoy! If you’re gaining weight but you’re happy and your weight is not negatively impacting your health then our final question for you is, why worry? Every individual person has a different base weight and people are happy and healthy at different weights, if you listen to your body intently – you should be able to figure out if your body is performing well regardless of your body mass. Good health comes with the broad category of self-care. Weight can be impacted by you not getting enough sleep or having too much stress in your life — and sometimes these variables are all improved by jogging with a buddy and not losing weight another way.

With Christmas fast approaching, it is easy to want to stay indoors and appreciate this heart-warming season. Yet, more and more people are turning towards running in winter as a way to stay prepared and beach-body ready way before summer is near. If you’re not one of these who is encouraged to run every day then don’t worry, it’s no surprise for running to lose its appeal at this time of year because of dark evenings, cold air and the knowledge that your family and friends are having fun inside. All of this can trigger a dislike for anything to do with running. If you need motivation to keep running through those colder evenings than just keep the latest running research at the forefront of your mind: A recent study by a North American University discovered that the running in the colder months can increase the speed you run by nearly 30%, while other research says that ‘streakers’ - people who run every day – build up their resilience, offset holiday weight gain and burn approximately 100 calories per mile. A jogging buddy can also be one of the best forms of motivations but hopefully if you’re on this website, you already have one. But with pesky cold conditions, you’ll need more than a buddy to help you stay safe on the hazy days. So, here’s our top tips to help you make sure you’re running correctly while safeguarding yourself against the most common cold jogging faux-pas. Do your best to reduce the chance of injury Most joggers think about injury prevention as an after-thought or not at all but as with everything in life, prevention is always the answer. Injury prevention should be thought about in every aspect of your running regime, including: into the training itself and watching how much you’re pushing your limits, by taking strength exercises before you run, getting enough sleep and making sure your muscles are relaxed after a run. If you’re jogging to lose some weight then to stay safe in the long term, you need to make sure you maintain a lean muscle mass. Try and take some days off Taking a day off will helps your muscles repair in between runs. If you do want to run every day then some form of recovery becomes even more important as they’ll be so much stress on your muscles and bones. As an alternative to taking a day off, you could run for a very short amount on one day every 3. Also, you could running at strategic times, e.g. run Wednesday morning and Thursday evening, for example. Listen to what your body is telling you It sounds a bit like a cliché but your body will tell you when you are pushing your limits too far. While if you’re training a little bit of pain is okay, you should also take note of when you have a little bit of cold, a congestion or a headache – you may know that you’re fine to continue running. But if you have a fever, flu or more severe sickness, you will know if your body is telling you to take a rest. But if you’re injured, then please stop any form of exercise for a while. If you listen to your body carefully you should be able to differentiate the normal pain from the bad pain that can lead to injury. If you’re ever in doubt then please speak to a medical specialist who knows a lot about exercise. Dress appropriately Jogging in cold weather? Then please remember to wear your layers. On every run or jog on a cold evening, you might not realise you’re wearing clothes for two tempe tures. Temperature one is when you first leave the house and you’re getting warmed up but need to protect yourself and temperature two is when body has warmed up and you may need to get rid of a layer that’s easy to take off, like a windbraker. Some people skip the warmup layers, but these people are very very cold at the beginning of their run. As you run you generate quite a lot of heat, so you don’t need layers that are too warm, e.g. a coat would be silly!