breathless

Question
Dear experts,
I have recently started jogging for the first time since the summer, I am out of shape now, and have started jogging to get fit again. I have been jogging for four weeks now, yet I always seem to be out of breath and always stopping and whising for breath, There seems to be no improvement, I must admit I do eat junk food after my jog but not to much, will this hamper my improvement?? I jog around 1/2 a mile at the moment so I am a little concerned about my fitness, how can I improve this??

David

Answer
David,
Since I don't know much about your current or past health history, I cannot figure out ideally what's causing you to be breathless, I can only take guesses at it.  If you are only jogging for half a mile, that isn't much time spent per workout on jogging.  Are you jogging frequently enough? Because if you were, you'd easily be going more than 1/2 mile for most people.  For all I know, you could be extremely overweight and can only handle so much, too, but don't take that as I'm assuming you are overweight.  

If I were you, I'd cut out the junk food definitely, because this stuff will just hamper results.  If you do it every time you jog, there's not much to gain from the jogging then.  If you were to jog & burn 120 calories, yet consume a 300 calorie burger right afterwards, you're not gaining much.  If you are trying to dig a hole and dig out 10 shovel-fulls, and put 25 on top of the hole when you're done, you now have a pile of dirt, and not the hole which you wanted in the first place.

I would also try walking & jogging intervals, such as walk 3 minutes, jog 1 minute, and do that 3-5 times in a workout.  Over time, you can decrease the walking durations and increase the jogging durations.  Pretty soon, jogging becomes an ease.

Rick Karboviak