I am often asked by many of my clients, ‘which is the best way to lose weight?’

Although there is no comprehensive answer, due to everyone being so very different, it is vastly important to get your heart rate up and your body into a cardiovascular state in order to see the best results over a period of time.

Yes, the treadmill is boring, however, it could be the one thing stopping you from seeing the results you are looking for. So simply put, if you find hitting your all-important goals “boring” then stay away from the dreaded thing!

My advice is to incorporate it into your workout and the best way to do this is by building your distance up over time. Ideally, you want to work towards 5km which is the distance to achieve your Couch to 5k but that is the end goal.

The first part of conquering the quest is by becoming comfortable on the darn thing and aiming for a target distance, not time. Time is hard to remember your performance level week in week out, whereas distance is measurable.

Start with 1.5k

Find a speed per hour that you are comfortable with and increase your speed from say 9k per hour to 9.3k per hour and then 9.7k per hour. Keep moving up as you start to feel more and more comfortable on the treadmill and when you reach, say 10.5k per hour ramp up the distance from 1.5k to 2.5k. At this point, it will be a good idea to drop your speed back down so you can last the full distance at least for the first few attempts just so you can become accustomed to the pace.

Of course, running in the open air is great and much more preferred by many as your time and distance can be controlled and monitored by your smartwatch and phone, however, the treadmill is super convenient and you don’t have to rely on weather conditions to get those KM’s in!