Walking for Weight Loss

Walking can be exercise and give you considerable weight loss, or walking can be an activity in which you will see your weight loss plateau. More details on that later. Walking is safe, low-impact, weight-bearing, and burns mostly fat instead of carbs. But when it comes to weight loss, the only drawback is your weight and your time.

The more you weigh, the more your burn!

Walking is a weight-bearing exercise and with weight-bearing exercises, the more you weigh, the more calories you burn. This is great when you are considerably overweight and see the pounds dropping off, but as you continue to lose the number of calories you burn walking the same distance and pace, decreases significantly. This leads to plateau's in weight loss and can be discouraging.

To illustrate this, let us share some numbers with you. Below is a chart for someone walking at 3 mph. For someone who is heavy 3 mph can be a challenging pace, while for someone with a high fitness level, this would be considered a casual pace. With any weight bearing exercise, the intensity of the activity is higher, with the more weight you are carrying. In contrast, if you were in a non-weight bearing activity such as riding a stationary bike, a heavy person would burn the same calories as a thin person.

Is time on your side?

Now, a pound of fat has 3500 calories. To burn a pound of fat when you weigh 100 pounds, it will take you 21 hours. To do the same for some weighing 250 pounds, it would take over 8 hours. A considerable difference.

If you do not have a ton of time to dedicate to exercise, you might want to consider either increasing the intensity of walking, by picking up the pace, adding distance, or more frequent outings. If that does not do it for you, choosing a more intense form of exercise is your only option.

Is walking exercise or activity?

That brings me to something I mentioned earlier.  Walking can be exercise, or walking can be activity.  For someone 300 pounds, walking is exercise.  It is very hard and when this person is done with a 15 minute walk, may feel wiped out!  Take someone 100 pounds and walking 15 minutes is nothing.  Walking is exercise if it challenges you.  Walking is activity if it does not.  Both are great, and are certainly a part of a healthy lifestyle, but don't count your "activity" as "exercise" because it is not.

Please do not misinterpret what we are saying here. Walking is an excellent addition to an active lifestyle. Reaching a goal of 10,000 steps is very popular now-a-days, and a great goal for someone who is not super active. For an active person though, 20,000 can easily be the norm. You must look at your fitness level and other limitation to determine the best goals for yourself, along with the ideal plan to get you there. That is what our personal trainers can do for you here at Sensible Fitness!