Am I Running Miles or Kilometres - Want to Lose Weight as Well

by Mel
(Wigan)

Hi, I have been running on my treadmill now for a couple of years to stay in shape. It's a Carl Lewis Mot566. Recently I have struggled with my weight and seem to be gaining although I have increased my exercise.

It has occured to me that I may not be running miles but kilometers however my instruction manual does not state it and I can't find the answer online.

I set the distance to 4 (I have presumed miles) each morning which takes me 24 minutes at 9.9 speed.

However my calories burned according to the treadmill is 120? Which leads me to believe I may be running kilometers? Can anybody shed any light on this for me please? I also do a further 2 / 3 miles (I think) on the treadmill after work.


Answer by Dominique:


Hi there,
Thank you for your question about your treadmill.

I am not completely certain of the answer but it would seem very likely that you are doing kilometres, not miles.

You have to be a pretty advanced runner in order to be able to run 10 miles / hour for 24 minutes at a time.

It is more likely that you are running at 10k / hr speed.

I am not sure the calorie indications on your treadmill are all that accurate. I thought the rough guideline was that you burn 1 calorie per 1 kg of bodyweight per 1 km.

I.e. if you run 4 km and weigh 60 kg you burn 60 calories per km, so roughly 4 x 60 = 240 calories.

So unless you weigh 30kg (30 x 4 = 120) your treadmill does not really make sense. And at 30kg I would imagine that having to gain weight rather than having to lose it would be the issue!

Anyways, this is just a rule-of-thumb calculation, check out my Calories Burned While Running calculator to enter distance and weight and obtain an approximation of calories burned while running.

You are doing a good amount of running. I would expect this to be very helpful when you are trying to lose weight. Do remember though that obtaining weight loss is not only about exercise. Diet is important too.

You will only lose weight if you burn more calories than you consume. If you have trouble losing weight there are different things you can do:

* Do more exercise
* Eat less
* Combine the two, i.e. do more exercise AND eat less.

Given the amount of running you already do, you may want to have a critical look at your diet. Maybe use an online calorie counter for a while. Myfitnesspal.com is a pretty good one.

It will not take too long before you understand a lot more about which foods to avoid and which food to eat and in which quantities.

Some suggested reading:

Running for Weight Loss

Runner's Diet

Hope this helps.
Kind regards,
Dominique