Coming to terms with the shock revelation that running doesn’t make you thin
But there are secretly lots of far better reasons to do it anyway
Picture a runner. What do you see? Long, lean, golden legs, a blonde ponytail swishing perfectly in the warm breeze and abs you could play Chopsticks on?
This would have been my answer a few years ago. And there is definitely a breed of runner just like this, especially at Dulwich parkrun, land of the sickeningly sporty. But there are also way, way more totally bog-standard humans of all shapes and sizes out there pounding the pavements and parks and tracks and trails for all sorts of reasons.
Perhaps some of them started running because they wanted to lose weight - or “get fit”, which is the more socially acceptable way of admitting that you want to lose weight.
I officially started running because, before lockdown, I was out and about a lot, commuting and generally swanning around. I have never been somebody who can stay at home all day in loungewear unless I’m really, really hungover, so when there was suddenly absolutely nowhere to go, I needed to take action.
Even before I downloaded Couch To 5K, I was acting weird. I’d go for walks and if I ended the day on 9000-and-something steps I’d secretly march on the spot in my pyjamas until I hit 10K. Perhaps you were “busy” baking sourdough at the time. Lockdown really did a number on our brains didn’t it?
But yes, I also wanted to lose weight.
Between April and August 2020, when I went from zero deliberate exercise to running three times a week without fail, I didn’t lose a single pound. It was only when I hired a PT who turned me onto strength training and helped me with my “nutrition” - this is what you call a diet without feeling like you’ve succumbed to diet culture - that I started to, slowly but consistently, lose weight.
As a result, I am about three stone (20KG) lighter than I was three years ago, but I am still Not Thin. In fact, I’m convinced that people must think my school run activewear is mere cosplay, because if I really do vigorous exercise 5-6 times a week how come I still don’t look like Mo Farah?
But the answer is clear:
So no, running hasn’t made me thin, but it does seem to help me maintain weight while eating and drinking nice things. I couldn’t run very much for a few months last year due to the plantar fasciitis that now niggles rather than plagues me, and even though I was still doing loads of other exercise, I put on about a stone. I’m currently running four times a week, strength training twice and trying not to give in to every pesky little sugar craving, but the stone has stubbornly stuck around, mainly in the region of my stomach and hips.
And I’m a bit pissed off about it, not because I think I look awful, but because it is slowing me down, and these are the metrics I’ve come to care about more than weight. A stone ago I could run 5K in under 30 minutes (just about, in the right conditions, and precisely four times in my life) and now I can’t, even though I’m training more than ever.
Unfortunately, the only way I can lose weight when I have made an independent, grown-up and considered decision that this is something that will make me feel happier and healthier is if I stick to a strict-ish calorie limit by tracking everything I shove into my gob on MyFitnessPal. On the one hand, it sounds miserable and I follow all sorts of brilliant and inspiring people on Instagram who would thoroughly disapprove. It screams diet culture and I feel embarrassed and ashamed when I do it. On the other, if someone said they were using an app to track their spending and get out of debt, you would probably think they were quite sensible, right? So why is exhibiting the same control over food intrinsically bad?
Plus... for me, it works. If I’m in a MyFitnessPal phase, I lose weight. If I exercise 5-6 times a week but don’t track my food and booze consumption, I maintain weight. If I don’t do any of it, I gain weight.
So I basically need to decide: do I want to run 5K in 29 minutes again, or do I want that bar of Tony’s? Because, presumably largely thanks to genetics and/or a metabolism messed up by a lifetime of yo-yo dieting - more on that another time! - it doesn’t feel like I can do both.
So, if running doesn’t actually make you thin, why the hell would any woman bother to do it, when she’s been brought up on the most dangerous diet of all: Kate “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” Moss for breakfast, SIZE ZERO STARS HIT THE BEACH coverlines for lunch and Victoria Beckham getting weighed on live TV for dinner?
Well, maybe because she’s finally realised that there are an awful lot of benefits to exercise that have absolutely nothing to do with weight… about bloody time, right?
ALONE TIME
Men have their long poos, I have my long runs. My very favourite runs are when I manage to get up at 6am and leave the house without interacting with any humans (I still have to feed the cats). Before I got into running, I would sit in the car outside the supermarket for 20 minutes after doing the shopping just for some peace, and then mutter something about long queues. Running seems more productive somehow. Disclaimer: I love my kids.
TOURISM
This summer I’ve run around country lanes* in Devon, Sussex, Wiltshire and Cambridgeshire, along the seafront in Margate and over Welsh hills, as well as past iconic London landmarks like the Cutty Sark, the Crystal Palace dinosaurs and, er, the Catford cat. When I visit a new place, going for a run is a great way to get my bearings, enjoy the scenery, take selfies with sheep and then annoy my husband three hours later by saying “Oh yeah, I saw that cute windmill this morning” when he thinks we’re discovering exciting new things together.
*My main finding is that I actually hate running around country lanes. Where are the fucking pavements? God I just love concrete and pollution.
STRENGTH AND STAMINA
I might not be thin but I am strong. More muscle was the first body change I noticed when I started running, even when I wasn’t losing any weight. Then I got into strength training too. Now I have buns of steel, albeit steel that has been elaborately gift-wrapped in layers of beautifully sumptuous padding, and I can hold a plank for longer than Ryan Gosling and almost as long as Margot Robbie.
This strength means that while I might not be fast, I can run a bloody long way without too much bother. At least I hope so, because I’m doing The Big Half - my third half marathon in two years - on Sunday.
HEALTH
I descend from a long line of highly-strung people with slightly elevated blood pressure. This sky-rocketed in pregnancy and stayed high afterwards… until I started running. Now it’s in the perfectly acceptable range and I don’t have to take any drugs. Plus my resting heart rate hovers around the late 40s/early 50s aka CERTIFIED ATHLETE. Wanting to stay alive for as long as possible seems like a pretty good reason to run.
BEING A ROLE MODEL
I have an eight year old son and a five year old daughter and they both like food. My son is notorious for eating absolutely anything and enjoys trying weird and wonderful cuisines, and I love and celebrate this about him. While not overweight, both kids are built sturdily and the other day my daughter asked me why she has bigger thighs than her friend.
It’s much easier to promote body inclusivity if you haven’t been a fat kid. I would not wish “go and stand at the back with the other chubby ones” or indeed “keep it up fatty” on them. Right now, they think I am the best person on the planet and so when they see me exercising, they want to do it too. We do Junior parkrun regularly and, on Sunday, after I’ve finished The Big Half, my son is very excited to be running The Big Mile.
My own parents are absolutely wonderful but exercise was never normalised and so I want to do things differently for my kids and hope that those healthy habits bed in before they’re pushing 40. Presumably when they’re teenagers and think I am the worst person on the planet, they will rebel strongly from all this but until then, I’ll quite literally run with it.
OK OK I ADMIT IT, IT’S MAINLY THAT I AM HORRIBLE WHEN I DON’T
I’m as addicted to endorphins as I am to chocolate and my phone. The key thing is, this addiction took a hold of me before I realised that running wouldn’t make me lose weight. So now, I have to run or I feel murderous, but I’m no longer under any illusions that it will magically make me thin. The good news is, the other gifts that running has given me have finally superseded that desire anyway.
But I do really, really want to get back to that elusive sub-30 5K.
If you want a more scientific take on this topic, there’s a very interesting article here about obesity expert Dr Giles Yeo coming back from an 1000 mile bike ride weighing exactly the same as he did when he set off.