I became a fan of Couch to 5K on Facebook, so I get daily links to various fitness articles. The link today was 10 Ways to Lose Those Last Few Pounds, which seemed totally up my alley. Some of the advice seems pretty reasonable, like avoiding unnecessary calories at breakfast and avoiding fried foods. But the second tip totally baffled me:
2. 20 Minutes a Day
Regardless of your current workout routine, try finding an additional 20 minutes a day. It might mean waking up earlier or staying at the gym an extra half-hour. Assuming you arent a regular runner, take this time to jog two miles. It should only take between 15 and 20 minutes. This is a short-enough distance to minimize the likelihood of shin splints or other running-related injuries for the uninitiated (though always exercise with caution--and a good pair of shoes).
Jogging this short distance six days a week, you will log nearly two marathons a month. Try telling anyone you wont lose a few pounds running a marathon every two weeks!
Okay, so running two miles a day is a work-out for me. I'm sure I would lose weight if I added another two miles to my work-out, but if I were in good enough shape that I could add 20 minutes of running to my exercise routine without risking injury, I wouldn't need to lose any more weight. And who can jog 2 miles in 15 to 20 minutes? I'd call that pace running.
So clearly I am not the intended audience for this article, but seriously, who is? And to the author of this piece--have you ever heard of an apostrophe?
Who are these crazy people?!
ReplyDeleteI tried the Couch to 5k thing a while back, too. I was doing well until I got stuck on repeat for week 3. It took me a few weeks of thinking that there was no way I could progress further in this program before I decided to sit down and calculate the pace at which the program thought you should run (turtle), compare that to the pace I'd been using (7 mph), and discover that running at turtle pace was sooooo much easier than actually RUNning. At that point, I gave up on the official Couch to 5k program, and just spend 20-30 minutes on the treadmill doing whatever the heck I feel like doing that day, which usually means alternating walking quickly uphill, RUNning for no more than a couple of minutes at a time, and turtle shuffling for up to 10 minutes at a time. I haven't lost any weight since I started doing any of it. Oh well. Hopefully you will have better results by following the official program, and will actually be able to jog your way through a 5k someday. :)
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