running 30x5 a week upping to 40 soon

if you want to tone, start lifting some weights and eat a clean diet. You would be amazed how many female fitness models do very little cardio to get as toned as they are.

Running is good for the heart and to achieve calorie deficit. But to reach your goals you need to start strength training. Good luck

30 what? 30 minutes 5 times a week? Eventually your body gets used to what your doing. Upping to 40 minutes will help. Eventually you'll want to add speed to make it more challenging again or add more time.

If you're running 30 miles a week and going to add another 10 miles per week. . .I would think you're already seeing body changes. Especially at such a low calorie intake.

Running isn't magic. It just burns a lot of calories in a relatively short amount of time.

What kind of differences? Are you looking to lose weight? That's going to come from diet, not through what exercise you choose. As for stamina, I think adding distance/time will generally end up boosting your stamina for the particular exercise.

Stamina for sure. Speed probably even without any speed work. And definitely weight loss. Jen, I don't know if you run, but at the mileage she's talking about is when it starts to become difficult to not lose weight. I run 30+ miles a week right now and I'm generally burning 1,000 extra calories or more on days I run. Just my running last month burned something like 15,000 calories.

That's 4 - 5lbs of weight right there. Its not an excuse to eat crazy but while exercise generally isn't the answer to weight loss, long distance running burns more calories than most anything else you can do.

I see what you're saying, I do run, but not in that amount. And 40 minutes, for my slow self, is probably somewhere between 3 and 4 miles, so that's probably less than 400 calories a run*, which is where I was coming from. I was more generally focusing on that "make sure you're tracking" aspect. And, now she's said she's only eating 1200 calories a day, and while I'm not a huge believer in "OMGZ Starvation Mode, you shall now never lose weight again!", I do believe that you need to fuel your body, and 1200 while running 5 times a week is likely far too little. I also agree with the suggestion that you should add in some resistance training.

*For me, as a slightly smaller than average 36 year old female (5'"4ish, 135ish). I also get that that's still a really excellent burn.

Here's what I would do to make it much more effective:

Get some variety in your runs. You've now hit the point where you have enough endurance to afford you more flexibility

1. . Instead of adding 5 minutes to each run, pick one day a week to start doing a long run- usually people do it on the weekend. This is your endurance run, you run it a little slower than all your regular runs, and add mileage each week.

2. One day a week, do your 30 minute steady state run (or 5k) you've been doing.

3. One day a week do a speed interval workout. To start, this can be about the same time, 30 minutes. Do a 5 minute steady state warmup, and then do intervals for 20 minutes. Designing your interval workout has LOTS of possibilities, I like to do 2 minute runs to start, followed by 1 minute walk, with increasing speed until I can't do 2 minutes any faster, then I back down to 90 seconds and then 60 seconds really fast. How you do it is up to you. They're fun!

That's it for running. You don't really need more.

4. ADD STRENGTH TRAINING! 3x a week, 30-45 minutes, full body. Very important.

and finally, the MOST important

5. You need to change your diet. 1200 calories plus running is not good. Reset your calories to TDEE-20% and you'll be able to run better and your results will be better and you won't be begging for an injury, which you are right now by eating too little. You're seriously not going to be happy if you get a running injury that benches you for 6 weeks or 3 months or longer.

I see what you're saying, I do run, but not in that amount. And 40 minutes, for my slow self, is probably somewhere between 3 and 4 miles, so that's probably less than 400 calories a run*, which is where I was coming from. I was more generally focusing on that "make sure you're tracking" aspect. And, now she's said she's only eating 1200 calories a day, and while I'm not a huge believer in "OMGZ Starvation Mode, you shall now never lose weight again!", I do believe that you need to fuel your body, and 1200 while running 5 times a week is likely far too little. I also agree with the suggestion that you should add in some resistance training.

*For me, as a slightly smaller than average 36 year old female (5'"4ish, 135ish). I also get that that's still a really excellent burn.

Hah, you know I had thought she was talking about 30 miles in a week but I was pretty tired (and still am 8) ) and now realize she meant 30 minutes. And sure, 30 - 40 minutes isn't quite the same but when I started out running that amount for my first year, I didn't eat much or any more extra and the weight did melt off. Definitely agree on fueling the body but I'm with you on the starvation myth. I only eat enough to feel like I've refueled myself...not to ensure I account for every calorie that's not really an exact number anyway.