So in order to do that, most people ask:

“Just how hard do I have to work if I want to start running to lose weight?”
“How far of a distance should I aim for with every workout?”
“How much time should I spend per workout?”
Or my favorite question: “How fast should I run?”

If you’re looking to get great results from running, here’s the real secret that nobody seems to tell you about…It’s all about having regular sessions that keep your heart rate regularly elevated for a prolonged period of time.

Now that could be a little complicated to understand for some, so let’s analyze that part by part, shall we?

“Regular sessions” — this means that you’re running AT LEAST three times a week. Having a two hour running session once every two weeks really isn’t doing you any good because it doesn’t condition your body to burn off more calories on a daily basis.

“Keep your heart rate regularly elevated” — I used to play basketball in exchange for running, but I hardly saw any weight loss. Why? Because the nature of basketball is that it’s a stop-and-go sport. While there’s a lot of high intensity activity because of all the sprints that you do, there’s also a lot of rest in between. To get any weight loss benefits from exercising, you need to be able to minimize this rest period and keep your heart rate up and going…

“…for a prolonged period of time” — It’s not just enough to get your heart rate up, because you must be able to sustain that heart rate for a certain period of time before your body considers it to be a regular activity. The industry-accepted belief is at least twenty minutes — but I like getting more results from my workouts, so I keep it at 30 minutes at the very least.

It’s useless to say that you should aim for 3 miles each workout if you’re walking all the way.

It’s equally useless to say that you should jog for 45 minutes each time if you’re barely pushing yourself to keep your heart rate elevated to an optimum level for fat loss.

And most useless is to say that you should run as fast as you can every workout if you end up giving 150% for the first 2 minutes then calling it a day.

I’m not going to take away from all the theories that fitness experts claim — I’m sure their theories are based on facts as well. But for the beginner who’s looking to start running to lose weight, keeping this simple concept in mind is probably the easiest way to get results from a running regimen and lose as much weight as you can in as little time as you could.

(To dramatically increase the effectiveness of your running workouts so you could lose weight faster and easier, I highly suggest you go ahead and download my book on running to lose weight. Tons of people had success with this running system, and it won’t hurt to take a peek.)