Does Running Build Muscle?

I was at a point in my life where I was sick and tired of being unfit and sluggish. I had been quite active during my younger years, competing in athletics and cross country events, but now in my late-twenties I was in bad shape. Over time I had become glued to my computer screen, whether it was for business or pleasure, and concentrated more on work than any forms of exercise. This was in combination of a bad diet. I would skip meals and eat way too much junk food because it was fast and easy. I lacked the motivation I had in my younger years and it started to show physically. So I decided to start making some changes. I wanted to loss body fat and drop weight, as well as tone up. I had gained a good 10 kilograms since I was a teenager and was determined to lose it and actually get muscular for once. Cardiovascular exercise seemed like the no- brainer approach to achieve this goal, so I started to run. I didn’t realise how unfit I was until I started jogging daily around my local football field. It was hard work, but after the first few weeks I started to get better. I went every day, and continued to improve in not only in pace, but also the distance I was running. To my surprise, I wasn’t really losing much weight. I had dropped 3 kilograms after a month of daily running. I thought this type of cardiovascular exercise would also reduce my body fat so I would look more toned, but this wasn’t happening either. I was at a bit of a loss, because I had just assumed running would be an ideal way of reaching this goal I had created. So I turned to the internet like most people do and at first it almost made things worse. There were so many types of information online that I was baffled. I wasn’t really too sure on how to proceed or what to follow, so I started to search for things that had worked for other people. I found an e-book called Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle which seemed to have great praise for actually working, without fads or secrets. It focused on hard work and good information to maximise weight lose and muscle growth and I was instantly intrigued. rnWhile a massive e-book (around 300 pages), it was broken into easy to manage chapters and I started to learn things I had no idea about. The biggest thing I learned was diet is just, if not more important, than the exercise you undertake. While running I wasn’t building much muscle or losing weight because I was still eating poorly. I thought the act of running itself would be enough to burn of the calories I was consuming. Even though I had cut out fast food, I was still not regular with meals (skipping breakfast frequently) and I was not eating the right foods. Even more I learnt that metabolism was a major factor in burning body fat. I was very uneducated on this topic, but Burn the Fat showed me the best ways to turbo boost your metabolic rate. For example, you need to eat up to seven meals a day with the right nutrient mix to keep your body fuelled during cardio training. I started to eat six controlled meals spread over each day and kept running.