What are the benefits of jogging

hnyzthms wrote: »

I've just started jogging two times a week for 2 miles to begin with. I also work 3 * 12 hr shifts which are on my feet most the shift (on a hospital ward).

I was wondering what benefits people have seen while sticking to the calorie allowed?
For example change in body shape or increased weight loss

You need to consider your 12 hour (on your feet) shifts as part of your weekly exercise as well.

The jogging has the potential to increase your stamina, and build endurance. Not to mention, the elevated HR has nice benefits of training your aerobic HR zone(s). There will not be any increase in weight loss unless you are currently at a deficit with your CICO calculation and use the jogging to run a bit larger deficit than you are currently doing in the kitchen. Certainly, cardio can be used to help boost the calorie burn on the days you jog - as long as you don't eat back all of the calories that you burn so you keep the increase of your deficit a bit on those days.

Change in body shape? Running is typically an endurance activity and has the "potential" to morph one into a "lean and mean" runner's body (depending on your physique, how much you run, the CICO equation, etc...). That's not going to happen with 4 miles a week, but if you were to slowly build up to more endurance distances - the body shapes itself accordingly over time to the activity.

By jogging around 2miles 3 x a week and lowering my calorie count, alongside a similar job on my feet walking around 14000 steps daily, I managed to lose a stone in 3 weeks. But mainly the jogging has helped me feel just generally better about myself, still a long way to go but defo stick to it girl!

Running can:

• help to build strong bones, as it is a weight bearing exercise.
• strengthen muscles.
• improve cardiovascular fitness.
• burns calories.
• help maintain a healthy weight.
• Feel better with stress relief.

Similar to lots of exercise.