Calories Burned While Running

by Stephanie
(Cottontown, TN, USA)

How many calories should a runner who runs 45-80 minutes a day eat to keep weight off, but also build lean muscle?


Answer by Dominique:

Hi there,
Thank you for your question about calories burned while running.

Important variables that depend on how many calories you need to take in are age, gender and exercise activity.

The older you are, the less you need. And if you are a female, you need less than a man, in general. And of course, the more you exercise, the more you can eat.


There are calculators available online that help you calculate your required daily calorie intake.

myfitnesspal.com is a good website that does that for you.

It also allows you to enter what you have eaten so you can keep track of everything as well.

How many calories you burn with your running depends on how long and how fast you are running.

In the end, it is mostly about the distance you cover.

You can run a 1 mile very fast in 6-7 minutes, but you'll burn less calories than when you run 3 miles in 35 minutes. You can get an idea about how many calories you burn when running by using this calculator:

Calories Burned While Running Calculator

Now, regarding the lean muscle. Just the running will help you build stronger leg muscles, but will not do much for your upper body.

To achieve the nicely toned look you appear to aspire you will have to do some upper body or core work, e.g. some resistance training and some pilates or abs work.

With seven days of running, there may not be a lot of time for other exercise. You'll have to find the balance that is right for you.

If it is all about the looks then you might want to cut down on the running a little and replace it with upper body work.

So, go to that website, work out your daily calorie intake requirements based on your weight loss goals and work out the amount and type of exercise that is right for you.

Hope this helps.
Kind regards,
Dominique