Incline running vs flat running

Question
Jared
Nilo
I am 50 in good health but fairly heavy for my height.
I have been running on the treadmill in our company fitness centre for several months now.
I go for 45 minutes every day,and sometimes up to 90 minutes depending on how much time I have.
I feel stronger and fitter but havent lost any weight.
I realise I have probably gained leg muscle and I also need to cut calories- which I will do.
A young 'jock' friend said I need to increase my exertion rate if I want to see the fat melt.He says I could 'jog' along like I do for hours and it wont do any good for burning fat,just ruin my knees and give me sore feet. He runs extremely fast for 30 minutes.
Mind you he is 34 and I am 52.
I admit I have been jogging steady not to fast happily  watching TV.
The treadmill has an incline setting. Would this help?
He also recomended 'sprints' but there is no automatic sprint setting and I dont want to constantly do it by hand.
I figured jogging on an incline would do the same thing?
Thanks!

Answer
Well, your friend here, he's probably conditioning at a higher level, in which case it would help him. But he is wrong about you. Running is THE best calorie burning exercise, and running at an inclination isn't going to burn more calories. I would think it's burning less, because it requires extra work, and instead of burning fat, focuses more on the endurance of your leg muscles. Plain running is the best running for fat burning. And sprints are for tweaking, my friend. You only sprint if you are in shape and want to increase your cardiovascular endurance.

But the fact that you are running so much, that tells us there is a problem. My dad, he's about your age, he runs every day, but all that does is prevents him from getting fatter, not burning fat.
Your answer lies within your diet. Not only do carbs keep you at the same weight if you eat them after your workout, but carbs can make it so that you are only burning your carb (glycogen) storage when you run. So you go out and run for 40 minutes, and quite possibly aren't burning 1 oz. of fat.

Don't give up on running... true, you might not be burning any fat now. But at least you're burning the carbs. You stopping running would produce the same results as someone who was skinny who stopped running.
Just don't eat carbs for a few days (THIS MEANS NO BREAD PRODUCTS), and then work out. The first thing your body will be burning will be fat. Forget about carbs, your body doesn't need them when you have fat to burn. Stay away from carbs, keep running, and you'll lose weight like you thought you never could. Calories are a measurement of the amount of food you are essentially eating, carbs being most of that mass. So calories aren't exactly what you are looking out for.
Good luck,
Jared