Metabolic Health

Here’s Why I Love Running, Yet I Practice It Differently for Health and Fitness Reasons.

I found better ways of running to make the brain, hormones, and joints happy.

Running A Two-Edged Sword in Modern World

The brain loves the exciting effects of running. Nevertheless, our joints and hormones dislike the impact, giving detrimental side effects.

Millions of people love running. Some do it safely and reap benefits. Unfortunately, others do it the wrong way, as I used to do, and suffer the consequences.

I used to be a long-distance runner in my younger years. Each marathon I completed gave me joy and increased my life satisfaction. But it took a long time to recover before the next marathon.

My primary goal was to keep my form by burning visceral fat accumulated in my abdominal area due to my nutritional mistakes.

Unfortunately, I did not know my exercise regimen was a mistake too.

There is nothing wrong with running if we do it correctly. Our ancestors ran in a specific way that we forgot to emulate. Modern science (anthropology and physiology) sheds light on ancestral running. Cardiologists validate it.

However, my practice was problematic in hindsight. After learning the side effects of running, I changed my practice, got rid of the side effects, and gained desired benefits.

I’d like to pass along the better ways to benefit from running in this story. So, rather than delving into theories, I use myself as a case study with a few examples in this story to make my points and make this piece practical and valuable.

Key Points of the Article

This article answers three questions.

1 — What are the benefits of running?

2 — What are the side effects of running?

3 — How can we reduce the side effects of running and benefit it?

1 — Benefits of Running

First, let me introduce the benefits of running based on my experience, observations, and reviews.

Running has many benefits, such as burning calories, releasing endorphins to improve mood, improving stamina, and strengthening the cardiovascular system.

My primary purpose in the running was to burn excess calories even though I was on a calorie-restricted diet. The good news was that I lost weight according to the scale. It was deceptive. The bad news was that my waistline did not shrink.

I felt great after each long-distance running session. My mood was good for several hours. However, the next day or so, my body got inflamed. Later I learned that running caused inflammation of my joints.

It took me several days to run again.

So my point is there were compelling benefits of running, but the way I do it was wrong and not sustainable.

2 — Side Effects of Running

I experienced two noticeable side effects that adversely impacted my health and fitness.

1 — The first one was inflammation in the joints, which was easy to identify as the symptoms were apparent.

2 — The second one was elevated cortisol which was verified later by specialists.

This knowledge gave me valuable insights into why I lost weight but not visceral fat from my abdominal area.

I explained the effects of cortisol in an article. Thus, I won’t repeat them here. You might check this article titled Optimize Cortisol to Melt Belly Fat and Keep Lean Muscles with Three Tips.

In summary, when cortisol levels are high, the body cannot tap into fat stores and consume energy from muscles in glucose form. Therefore, I lost muscles but not visceral fat.

This was an eye-opener for me to re-adjust my fitness and dietary regimens.

I conducted a comprehensive literature review of credible sources on the risks of excessive and long-distance running. Thus, I provided my findings in a summary form in an article titled Striking Health Risks of Extreme Running.

3 — Re-Adjusting Exercise and Eating Regimens

After learning about the effects of the cortisol hormone and metabolic hormones such as insulin and leptin, I understood that my body did not like excess calorie-cutting seeing it as starvation.

During starvation mode, the body cannot tap into the stored energy and attempt to use muscles as an energy source to survive. Therefore, we lose precious muscles.

In my case, I was cutting my calories and doing excessive exercise to lose fat. However, this wrong approach was against our metabolic process.

So, I made a few dietary and exercise adjustments with these lessons.

First, I fixed the dietary issue by consuming adequate calories, so my body did not sense starvation.

In addition, I moved from carbs to healthy fats and practiced time-restricted eating to reduce the impact of insulin and make the body leptin sensitive. Leptin loves fat as it is made up of fat.

I documented the metabolic effects of insulin and leptin resistance in two articles linked below.

Three Tips to Eliminate Insulin Resistance and Shrink Waistline

Make the Body Leptin-Sensitive to Lose Visceral Fat With a Simple Metabolic Shift

From an exercise perspective, I made two adjustments.

Instead of running long distances, I chose short bursts running 1 to 3 minutes in several repeats.

This approach prevented elevated cortisol levels. After this adjustment, first time, I noticed the shrinking of my waistline with a minor change in the deceptive scale. The deception was caused by gaining muscles (heavier) and losing actual fat (lighter).

This regimen allowed my body to tap into fat stores as an energy source.

However, I had to solve my second problem, which was inflammation of the joints. I did not enjoy the pain after each long-distance running session.

The biggest issue with running is the effect of hard surfaces on joints. So, initially, I decided to complete my short burst on grass or beach sand. Expectedly, after several months my inflammation markers reduced.

Fortunately, I was on the right track.

My subsequent adjustment was an innovative idea. I discovered the trampoline, which was even softer than grass and beach sand. Besides, they were not options during the winter.

Investing in an indoor trampoline solved my joint issues. I started completing my HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) on the trampoline.

I documented my years of experience with trampolines in an article titled Trampoline Is Not Just Another Fitness Tool: The remarkable health and fitness benefits of trampolines for the last 30 years have made jumping for joy a lifestyle choice for me and many others.

Conclusions and Takeaways

Running is a beneficial exercise if it is done correctly as our ancestors did.

Unfortunately, I did it incorrectly, as influenced by modern hype, and suffered from side effects.

For young people, running is less risky than for older people. The most significant side effect of long-distance running is on the joints. As we get older, the body produces less collagen to nourish cartridges.

The second side effect of long-distance running, especially in calorie-restricted diets, is elevated cortisol. As long-distance running creates significant stress in the body, it releases more cortisol to cope with the stress.

Therefore, cortisol releases were reduced when I stopped long-distance running and replaced it with short burst running.

In addition, short distance running with intensity (HIIT form) can significantly increase the growth hormone, improving recovery in multifold.

As the hard surface can damage joints, we must choose soft ground such as grass or sand to run on.

As for takeaway points, I’d like to highlight the hormonal and inflammation effects of running.

The viable option to address the hormonal issue is to move from extended running to interval and intensified sessions. This approach decreases cortisol and increases growth hormones.

To address inflammation issues, we can choose soft spots to run or consider a trampoline to emulate running in HIIT format to reap the benefits.

These two changes solved my problem and allowed me to use running as a safer tool in my fitness journey. I also read many testimonials of this approach in the fitness communities.

If we observe the bodies of sprinters and marathon runners, we can see the empirical evidence of the benefits of short-burst running. The evidence is the attractive bodies of sprinters.

There is compelling evidence on the metabolic benefits of HIIT and the disadvantages of excessive cardio in the literature.

We are all different, but as an example, I also shared my joyful workouts, including those I use while traveling to keep my fitness.

Running and high-intensity training is not for everyone, of course.

So, the alternative is walking slowly or briskly.

I enjoy long walks barefoot on grass or sand, which have less impact on joints. Like Amanda or Aria, my daily goal is 10,000 steps which brings many health and fitness benefits.

Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life.

Besides aiming to increase the hormonal intelligence of my readers and writing about neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, GABA, acetylcholine, and norepinephrine, one of my goals as a writer is to raise awareness about the causes and risk factors of prevalent diseases that can lead to suffering and death for a large portion of the population.

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