Weight loss

I ran 10 miles yesterday and according to the machine only burned 1100 calories ....... thats like 1 KFC meal ........ all that effort just to burn off one KFC meal????  thats why its easier to eat a lettuce leaf than do a 10 mile run every day to lose weight.

 yeah that pretty much sums it up

Dut DF3 if you need 2500 calories ish a day to maintain your weight, you now need 3,600 to maintain given your run. So you can actually eat an 1100 calorie KFC for breakfast, lunch and dinner and still have  a calorie deficit of 300 calories for the day - have that deficit every day and you should lose a bit less than a pound for the week.

Massively oversimplifying things, of course, but then calories alone is a massive oversimplification. Just one that usually works for me.

I think many people under-estimate how sedentary their lives really are.

As someone mentioned earlier, 4 x 1hour of exercise per week isn't very much at all, if the rest of your day is spent doing an office job and driving to and from work.

It's great for general fitness, but in the scheme of things, doesn't contribute a huge amount to weight loss unless you're also being pretty strict with food intake.

Thanks everyone

Just to clarify I am 40 years old, 5.5 tall and weigh 11 stone 10 pound.

Not an expert on this at all, but this worked for me - i started running and lost weight initially and then just sort of reached a plateau. I found that by changing my training to involve interval work at a fairly high intensity shifted stubborn weight rather than running consistantly at a steady pace over a long distance. I found hill sprinting did for me but the obvious downsides are that if you do it too often you are quite likely to injure yourself and secondly it's bloody hard. It seems to give fat nowhere to hide, I managed to shift my love handles doing this.

Demon Barber - do you mean running shortish stretches uphill as fast as you can? Uphill interval training? If you come down carefully I don't think it is all that likely to injure you. Running fast downhill is far more dangerous, I'd say, because of the increased impact on the joints. 
I'd agree that the body seems to get used to longish steady running, and after a while you hardly seem to lose any weight at all. And of course, a couple of cream buns will cancel the whole thing out anyway! So I believe that extreme care with eating is crucial.

Thats cause youre naturally skinny also ran so you would say that!

Having said that Im not fat ...... maybe a kilo or two here or there and Id be sorted

David Falconer - I'm not skinny! I'm only 5' 4.5" but weigh 10 st. 10 lbs. That's not skinny. Sadly, I don't find running is making a blind bit of difference. However, I suppose it must be helping a little bit.
Adding some muscle mass would help, but that means sticking at dumb bell exercises, etc. very regularly - something which I always fail to do. Muscle burns calories.

groder wrote (see)

Thanks everyone

Just to clarify I am 40 years old, 5.5 tall and weigh 11 stone 10 pound.

Ok, so assuming you aren't a body builder, i'd say you probably are a stone or two heavier than you could be.  I'm 6ft 1" and around 11 stone but I have the reverse problem to you.  I struggle to prevent myself losing weight as my miles grow.  This is not down to some magic metabolism I have or being "naturally thin" (no such thing exists) it's because I hate junk food and drink sensible enough levels of booze.  I don't have a monster appetite so 3 "square meals" a day is usually enough for me (so I now force myself to graze on nuts and seeds to keep the weight on). 

That's why I question whether you really do eat as healthily as you think.  Even then, you may eat healthily but not low in calories.  Nuts, seeds and oily fish are all fabulously good for you and definitely healthy food.  They are all also extraordinarily high in calories.  Healthy does not always mean low calorie.

The only sure-fire way to do it is to start to properly log approximate calorific values of all food and drink (including snacks of all types) and how much you should expect to burn off for a person of your size and then subtract the rough calories you are burning from exercise.  If you are still in positive calories, do more and eat less/better.  If you are in negative calories, you'll lose weight.  If you are in negative calories and still gaining weight - your calculations are wrong so do even more and eat even less or do the maths work again

Good luck!

Also_ran wrote (see)

Demon Barber - do you mean running shortish stretches uphill as fast as you can? Uphill interval training? If you come down carefully I don't think it is all that likely to injure you. Running fast downhill is far more dangerous, I'd say, because of the increased impact on the joints. 
I'd agree that the body seems to get used to longish steady running, and after a while you hardly seem to lose any weight at all. And of course, a couple of cream buns will cancel the whole thing out anyway! So I believe that extreme care with eating is crucial.

I wouldn't quite say "as fast as you can" but at a high tempo. I use Hill sprinting in my training to build strength and I haven't been injured. I agree, it's a case of just being careful and coming down the hill gently obviously not hammering up and down!!

Another shout out for myfitnesspal. Try logging everything that you eat even for a couple of weeks, it's definately an eye opener and should show where you are going wrong.

Stick to making everything from fresh produce and cut out all the refined carbs and processed meat, limit your alcohol intake, nuts, seeds, "healthy" oils and you can't fail to lose weight

Thanks for all the advice, but I am doing just fine now