Can you lose weight by walking?
Exercising regularly is something you need to do in order to stay healthy and fit.
Being active physically will decrease the risk of developing health conditions such as cancer, diabetes, and heart diseases.
Moreover, committing to a healthier lifestyle such as doing exercise benefits you in terms of losing weight and lives a longer life.
Luckily, there is a free, simple, and easy way to do more physical activity.
Yes, walking is an exercise that is not only convenient but also highly accessible and has a low risk for most people because most of them do it on a daily basis, anyway.
Read further down below to find out how walking can give you various advantages such as losing weight and reducing belly fat.
It Helps to Burn Calories
Calories are needed by humans to get energy and carry activities throughout the day.
It involves complex chemical reactions for you to move, breathe, and other normal functions.
The amounts of required calories vary between persons, based on several factors such as weight, sex, activities, and genes.
It has been known by most people now, that in order to lose weight, they have to burn more calories than they consume.
It can be achieved by being highly active physically – but truth is, with how the world functions today, it is more likely to find yourself spending most of the day sitting, especially for an office job.
Besides contributing to more weight gain, this shiftless lifestyle may increase the risk of encountering health problems as well.
Doing walking exercise more often will help to decrease the risk and burn calories at the same time.
Walking for a mile will burn roughly 100 calories, but again, it depends on someone’s weight and sex.
There is a study that assessed the number of burned calories of non-athletes, who ran at 6 miles per hour for a mile.
Then it is compared to walk at a brisk pace at 3.2 miles per hour for a mile as well.
The result is, walking at a brisk pace burn about 90 calories approximately.
Additionally, running for a mile burns more calories, but only at 23 calories on average.
This shows that both forms of exercise can contribute a great number of burnt calories.
If you want to burn even more calories efficiently by only walking, you can try hills route or slightly sloped area.
It Helps Maintain Muscle Mass
Losing some muscle mass in addition to body fat when trying to lose weight by cutting calories, is a common problem for many people.
As muscle is metabolically more active compared to fat, it will be counterproductive.
Walking and other forms of exercise can prevent this effect by conserving lean muscle in the process of losing weight.
They decrease metabolic rate drops that come with weight loss, so it is easier to preserve the result.
Moreover, they also reduce muscle mass loss that related to age, helping you to retain more muscle function and strength.
It Contributes to Burn Belly Fat
Piling up a high amount of fat on your stomach has been linked to a higher amount of disease risk, such as heart disease or type 2 diabetes.
As a matter of fact, men that have greater waist circumference (around 40 inches) and women that have a similar issue (around 35 inches) are considered to have abdominal obesity, one of condition that’s associated as health risks.
Taking a walk regularly for exercise is one of the most effective ways to get rid of stomach fat.
According to one study, walking for 50 to 70 minutes, thrice a week for 12 weeks long, is able to decrease waist circumference of obese women by 1.1 inches.
On average, they also lose about 1.5% of overall body fat.
In a different study, the result shows that participants on a calorie-controlled diet lose more 1.5 inches on waistlines and 1.3% overall body fat, by walking for sixty minutes five times a week for 12 weeks long compared to participants that count on sole diet.
Another study that measured brisk paced walking for half an hour to an hour per day have discovered more or less similar result.
It Boosts Up Your Mood
It is already a widely known fact that exercise can improve someone’s mood.
Through various researches, it has been concluded that physical activity helps to brighten up the mood and reduce stress, anxiety, and depression due to the production of serotonin and norepinephrine hormones.
The hormones mentioned above trigger endorphin release, which helps to relieve depression feelings and increase happy feelings.
Walking is an easier habit to keep up when you’re getting direct effects such as mood improvement as explained.
In addition, several studies have discovered that people will more likely to continue doing a habit of being physically active if they’re enjoying it.
It is common to exercise less if the activity itself is not enjoyable due to being very physically demanding.
That’s why walking is a great exercise choice because it has a moderate intensity, so you will be motivated to do more of it rather than being burdened by it.
It Helps to Control Your Weight
Sure you have heard of weight loss story nightmares: gaining all the lost weights back after putting so much effort on it.
To maintain all the results and prevent your attempt to go into vain, you have to exercise regularly.
Doing walking activity daily will burn your calories and help you prevent losing lean muscle.
As has been mentioned on the previous point, doing regular exercise with moderate intensity like walking will improve your mood so there is more possibility that you’d stay active for the long term.
How much walking to lose weight?
A review that conducted recently calculated that someone has to walk a minimum of 150 minutes a week to maintain a stable weight.
That being said, someone has to walk more than 200 minutes a week in order to prevent gaining all the weight back.
A few studies have discovered that people that commit to disciplined exercise will be successful at maintaining their weights after losing it.
On the contrary, people increase their chance of regaining weight if they put bare minimum effort on exercising.
Doing more walking activity every day contributes to the amount of exercise that you need to do to meet daily activity goals.
Several Ways to Add Walking Exercise Routine into Your Lifestyle
There are actually so many benefits when it comes to being physically active.
Some of them are including mood improvement, decreased risk of health problems, and an increased chance of living a healthier life for longer.
Due to these advantages, it is recommended for you to walk at least 150 minutes or two and a half hours a week, in mild intensity or brisk pace.
How to lose weight by walking?
You can find plenty of ways to increase the amount of walking exercise in order to accomplish the target.
Here are several ideas that are easy to do:
- Log your steps daily by using your fitness tracker to motivate you to be more active.
- Create a walking habit after every meal, such as after dinner or lunch break.
- Offer your friend to join an evening walk routine.
- Walk your dog as a daily activity, or join along when a friend walks their dog.
- Take a walk to interact with co-workers instead of asking to meet at your cubicle or desk.
- Perform various errands like going for groceries or taking kids to school on foot.
- Walk to work if it’s close enough. If not possible, park your vehicles several blocks from the office, or get off at a few bus stops earlier than you should, and walk away for the rest of the route.
- Try alternative routes to make your walks challenging and interesting.
- Participate in a walking group.
Remember that even a little bit of action helps. Better to start small then gradually increase your steps day by day to make it habitual.
Final Thoughts
Walking is an amazing type of exercise to maintain and improve your health.
The intensity is only moderate compared to other workout kinds, so it is easier to be incorporated.
Walking requires zero equipment and can be performed at any time of the day, with your own choice of pace.
This simple activity can contribute to weight and belly fat loss. One mile of walking will burn approximately a hundred calories.
When it comes to a prominent form of exercising, moderate-intensity walking will provide a result as good as running, as long as the energy expended is about the same amount.
On the other hand, it also provides a number of excellent benefits for health, including mood improvements and decreased risk of health problems.
Combining walking activity with a healthy diet is the best way to get maximum results.
The best thing about walking is you can do it without having to worry about several risks that have been associated with heavier exercises.
It suits just about everyone: be it men or women, elderly or overweight people, as well as those who haven’t exercised for a long time.
