Running to burn fat on the treadmill is a great way to lose weight, build speed and endurance, and ultimately make you a healthier person.

A few years ago I went through my second back surgery. Not being able to run along with prescribed steroids packed on the pounds to my already large frame. I love running, ran cross country and track in high school along with road races after. My days of running regularly on the roads and pounding the pavement was pretty much over.

Until...I feel in love with the treadmill. The treadmill can be a boring chore for most runners, but I came up with several ways to make running on the treadmill exciting, challenging and even fun. You can do the same by following the these basic steps that will burn fat, help you lose weight and increase your speed and endurance.

Step 1: Establish a baseline
What I suggest is set the treadmill at 0 for the incline, select manual workout and select a speed that you can comfortably run for 30 minutes without exhausting yourself. Conversational pace is the key. The pace you set should allow you to carry on a conversation with very little strain for the duration of the run. Once you have established that baseline over the next couple of days, you can proceed to the next step.

Step 2: Establish your maximum limit
After establishing your baseline, do a workout starting with your baseline speed. Increase the speed by .1 every 15 seconds. Once you get to the point where you can no longer keep up drop the speed quickly down to your baseline speed and finish the run. The highest level you made it to is your Maximum limit.

*Note: Your baseline and maximum limit will increase over time. I suggest you re-evaluate these every month or two.

Step 3: Develop workouts that play on the baseline and maximum limits
Always start at your baseline speed. Depending on how you feel, establish a time like every 15, 30 45 seconds or 1 minute to increase by .1 on your speed. Do this until you reach maximum, run maximum for that increment of time you chose and quickly scale down to the baseline again. Catch your breath and start over. Repeat this until the selected workout time is concluded.

Step 4: Vary the workouts
Vary your workouts regularly through the week. Never do the same workout in a week. This will keep things fresh and exciting. Come up with different plays on the time and speed. As an example, sometimes I start out at baseline and increase by .1 by doing what I call the 5 second countdown. I start out running baseline for 1 minute, increase speed by .1, run that for 55 seconds, increase by another .1, run that for 50 seconds, and so on until I reach 0 seconds, then start the process over and repeat until I reach maximum limit, then quickly decrease speed and start over.

This should help tremendously in running to burn fat, losing weight and building speed and endurance.