Running on the treadmill is one of the fastest ways to burn fats and lose those extra pounds. However, there is more than one answer to the question of how fast you can do it?
There are three types of methods to lose weight through any cardio exercise, the fast one, the slow one, and the healthy one. The speed of losing weight depends upon the time and intensity of your workout.
Not all the parts of these methods are mutually exclusive. And that makes it complicated to understand exactly what exercises to choose, which method to adopt, and how long it should take you to lose your target weight.
If one chooses the healthy way to lose weight; how long does it take to lose 40 pounds on a treadmill? It will take about 20 to 40 weeks to lose 40 pounds healthily.
Now that you have a fair idea about the timeline, let’s get into more details about safe and optimum ways to lose weight through maximizing calorie burn and lifestyle changes.
Healthy Safe Weight Loss
It is very common to desire faster results, may it be about losing weight or lifestyle changes. In both cases, unnecessary hurriedness can cause long term damage to your health and wealth.
- According to CDC, losing 1 to 2 pounds per week is considered a safe and healthy weight loss.
- At 1 pound/week, it will take 40 weeks
- At 2 pounds/week, it will take 20 weeks
If you are losing weight faster than this rate, then it either means you are overdoing diet restrictions and calorie-burning workouts, or you have some health issue, or your workout and diet regime is causing faster weight loss.
In either case, it is unhealthy to lose weight at a higher rate and you need to take measures for controlling it. If you lose weight so fast, you will put it back on faster.
Weight Loss Calculations
The PUBMED recommends the MET concept as a convenient method to determine the exercise tolerance of the individual, to compare the exercise intensities, and to calculate the calories burned per hour.
The MET or one metabolic equivalent is related to the amount of O2 consumed by the body at resting position. In terms of energy consumption, MET is the rate of consumption of energy by the body.
At rest, the body is at 1 MET and consumes 1 calorie per Kg (2.2 pounds approximately) of body weight per hour. The energy cost of a workout can be calculated in multiples of MET. When you are working out on your treadmill, the moderate-intensity runs will cost you about 7 MET.
- For example, if a person weighing 100Kg (220 pounds) runs at a good pace for an hour he/she will burn about 700 calories. While resting, he/she will consume only 100 calories in that time. ie, by doing 1 hr treadmill workout he burnt 600 extra calories.
- Spending excess 500-calories/day should lead to a loss of 1 pound per week
- Spending excess 1000-calories/day should lead to a loss of 2 pounds per week
Weight Loss On A Treadmill
Calories burned in a 30 min treadmill workout
Speed: 4 mph
- 170 lbs: 211
- 180 lbs: 224
- 190 lbs: 236
- 200 lbs: 249
- 210 lbs: 261
Speed: 6 mph
- 170 lbs: 492
- 180 lbs: 521
- 190 lbs: 550
- 200 lbs: 579
- 210 lbs: 608
Having a treadmill at your home gym provides you with an option to workout at any time for any duration.
- If you are unable to find an hour to exercise in your busy schedule, then you can even choose to work out for 6 times a day 15 minutes at a time if you wish.
- You should target spending about 45 minutes or more on the treadmill at least five days a week. You can mix up the workouts by playing with the workout intensity.
To prevent muscle/body adaptation and for optimum results, prepare a schedule to incorporate walking, slow jogs, mid-paced running, tempo runs, runs on the incline, and interval runs. The treadmill provides options to perform the exercise at different intensities, enabling you to optimize the weight loss process.
Maximize Calorie Burn & Weight Loss
As it is clear from the weight loss calculations that if you weigh more, you will burn the calories faster and hence lose the weight at a faster rate. The calculations also suggest that the higher the intensity of the workout faster the rate of weight loss.
That means you will be burning calories faster when you start your efforts towards losing weight and as you move forward, as you start losing weight the rate of weight loss will decrease if you keep working out at the same intensity for the same duration.
- In order to maximize the calorie burn and accelerate the weight loss, you need to keep progressing. The progression can be in terms of duration of the workout, or its intensity, or both.
Your target of losing 40 pounds may seem steep at the beginning, but as your start exercising on the treadmill, you can easily move from walking to brisk walking and then to running and running faster for a longer duration in few weeks.
Lifestyle Changes for Optimum Results
Working out on the treadmill will help you spend the extra calories and to burn up those deposited as fat in your body. But for optimum results, you need to make some lifestyle changes in order to regulate calorie consumption.
On average a person needs approximately 2500 calories in a day to function, if you wish to cut down on your weight then you must consume lesser than that so your body can burn fats to keep functioning.
If you run hard for an hour and then consume over 3200 calories in a day, you are nullifying the effect of exercise on your body weight.
If you wish to reach the target of losing 40 pounds and maintain that weight, then you need to switch to a healthy lifestyle comprising of switching to a healthier diet, sleep pattern, exercise routine, and evaluation and updating of all these with time.
Conclusion
A calorie deficit diet, 45 minutes of exercise a day, commitment to the exercise and eating schedule, and a fair idea about the workout intensities you can handle are the important elements for reaching your target of losing 40 pounds in a healthy way in a minimum time.
For losing weight without causing any health troubles and maintaining it for the long term, you need to incorporate a healthy diet and a sufficient amount of calorie-burning treadmill cardio exercises in your routine.
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