Weight loss question?

[fatguy23]

Greetings, I am new to the community here and I just had a question for anyone that may have tried this or know about this, I have recently quit smoking (finally) and I told myself that if I ever was able to stop I would get back into shape, well that was about a month ago and since then I've gradually been running at the local YMCA, my question is, is running daily (usually about 3 miles) and diet enough to lose weight and cut fat, I guess I could care less how much I weigh as long as I'm not squishy I am not able to weight train during the day as I have a limited amount of gym time (1 hour) and if i do get to it's usually only about 10 minutes worth, sorry if this is a little sporadic or in the wrong topic, all replies are appreciated!

 

[monsieur_horse]

1 hour is plenty of time for a really good cardio session. When you're used to running you'll be able to burn 600 calories in 35 mins on the treadmill.

Yes, diet and running daily are enough to lose fat. In fact, it's the way to do it ;-)

Just be wary of eating too little. If you hit starvation mode, it'll throw your metabolism out of whack and reduce your cardio performance.

 

[Steve]

Your question is, for the most part, impossible to answer.

In a nutshell, you ask, "Is running and diet enough to lose fat?"

What do you mean by diet.

The very simplistic fact is losing fat requires a caloric deficit. So if said running and said diet puts you at a caloric level below that which your body needs to maintain itself, tissue will be lost.

I'm not sure of your stats, but I'd much sooner throw weight training into the mix than I did cardio. Since, as you said, you care more about looking good than a specific number on the scale... weight training is a strong stimulus to preserve muscle while dieting. Without said preservation, chances of looking firm when all is said and done are slim.

Of course diet composition is critical too, but I suggest reading through the stickies to get a feel for that and if you have specific questions, let them fire.