I just started last week and found that 1.5 miles in 30 minutes was a good routine to push myself at first but not overdo it. However the treadmill says I am only burning around 120 calories by doing that. Is the treadmill relatively accurate? With the drain of school (I'm only 16) and homework I find that for the time being 30-45 minutes fits into my schedule nicely. I walk at about 2.5 miles an hour for 15 minutes. In that time I get up to 2.9 mph. After the warmup I run at about 3.3 mph for as long as I can. I take short breaks and walk at 2.7-2.9 when I feel I am starting to overdo and let my body calm down a little before running again. The kind of treadmill we have does not go totally flat, so at the lowest level it still has a 1.5 incline.

Does it just take time to get to where you can really burn some calories or am I doing something incorrectly?

Also, what are the best stretchs to do before running and how long should I stretch?

I take treadmill calorie output with a grain of salt. The treadmill doesn't knw your body weight, google "calories burned" and it should give an estimater. Sometimes its not much higher than what the treadmill says, but there is a difference.

I'd say what you are doing is fine, you don't want to push yourself too hard and end up hurting yourself. When your stretching, try to focus more on your legs as they are what are doing most of the work

Are you interested in resistance training at all?

I think you would notice some real gains if you (for example) split your cardio into two ten minute sessions and used the other 25 mins or so for some weight training. (if you only have 45 mins)

I dunno if you have access to weights, but it might be something to think about.

I am not a trainer though so if Steve comes in here and destroys my advice...i wont take it personally LOL

lol!!!!!!!!!!