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Being physically active is extremely important for losing weight. Now we’re not saying you have to go to the gym and do high-intensity workouts. Walking for weight loss is also great!
In fact, brisk walking for weight loss is one of the best ways to burn fat.
However, there are some important points that you should know about walking for weight loss before you start. Such as the intensity, whether or not you should be drinking water, how to track your progress, and so on.
We’re sure have tons of questions like…
Can walking help me lose weight? Will walking help me lose weight? Can it improve your health? How should I walk to lose weight? What should I do if walking is boring for me? How many miles should I walk to lose 20 pounds?
The questions about walking for weight loss are endless, and in this article we will try to answer all of them and much more so stay tuned.
Walking helped so many people lose weight, and it can help you too! But first, let us introduce you to all the benefits of walking for weight loss. Then, we’ll guide you through the essential steps you need for your success…
How To Walk Off Belly Fat
First, lets begin with the benefits of walking. Then we will move on to the practical tips to make it help you lose weight. If you are familiar with the benefits of walking, you can skip directly to the practical guide below 🙂
Benefits of walking for weight loss:
1. It makes you happy
Walking boosts your mood. Many studies have shown that the more steps you make every day, the happier you will be. Why? When you walk, the body releases natural endorphins which help you have a greater sense of calm and well-being. Many people (including me) claim that walking helps clear their minds. No doubts – walking will make you feel better.
2. It helps you lose weight
Being physically active is very important for both your weight loss and your health. However not everyone wants to go to the gym or get a personal trainer. Luckily, simply a walking workout at a brisk pace is always an option!
Walking for about an hour can help your burn ~300 calories. If you walk every day, in a week you will have burned about 2100 calories – that’s 0.6 pounds per week! In a month, you will have burned 9000 calories – that’s about 2.5 pounds per month! So, technically, walking for about an hour every day for 8 months will help you lose 20 lbs!
Or bump up your daily walking so you would burn ~500 calories per day! Then you will have burned 3,500 calories in a week – and that’s 1 pound per week! Combine walking with a healthy diet and your 20, 40, or even 80 pound weight loss journey will be finished in no time!
Don’t forget that walking for weight loss is a low-intensity exercise, so the main fuel your body uses while walking is fat from your storage room (most likely belly fat and those other annoying places). So walking is really great for calorie burn!
3. It improves your health
Walking can have a bigger positive impact on many diseases and other health conditions than any other remedy available to you. In fact, walking for only 21 minutes a day or 2.5 hours a week can cut your risk of heart disease by 30%. Also, walking reduces the risk of cancer and diabetes, lowers cholesterol and blood pleasure, helps you to be mentally sharp. According to some estimates, regular walking could save $100 billion every year in US health care costs.
Source: Harward Medical School
4. It makes your community stronger
Social scientists have found that as more people take to the streets, the local economy improves and neighborhood crime rates fall. It’s an excellent way to connect with neighbors and meet new people. Take a walk with your child – it can improve communication, academic performance and reduce behavior problems.
Source: Harward Medical School
5. All these benefits of walking are FREE
As you can see walking has a ton of health benefits for you. The best part of it all – it’s completely free! You don’t need any special equipment for walking. Just put on your shoes, step out the door and GO!
How To Walk Off Belly Fat [Practical tips]
1. Set long-term and short-term goals
If you want to start moving more you must set goals for yourself. The long-term goal could be “300.000 steps per month”, and the short-term goal “10.000 steps every day” or “30 minutes of walking every day”. Focusing on a short-term goal will help you achieve the long-term goal more easily. Live in the moment and do the best you can do for yourself TODAY. Your progress can be measured by steps, time or by distance.
Example of goals:
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2. Make Walking More Interesting
While waking you can do a bunch of different activities like listening to your favorite music, talking to your friend, listening to audiobooks or podcasts. Personally, I prefer listening to audio books while walking because I’m killing two four birds with one stone – shredding away fat, improving my health, improving my mood and learning new things. If you want to lose weight, I suggest you buy a few books about weight loss and nutrition and listen to them while you are walking.
One great book you could listen to about losing weight is:
100 Days of Weight Loss: The Secret to Being Successful on Any Diet Plan
Going on a diet is easy, staying on a diet is hard and it is the consistent, long-term lifestyle change that results in real success. This book is not a diet but a diet companion. There are 100 short lessons that provide coping skills, behavioral tools, and personal growth ideas that serve as a companion and encourager and give dieters the daily strength to stick with their resolution.
Audiobooks are a great way to improve your knowledge about weight loss.
If you are interested in listening to audiobooks I bet you can find a perfect fit for you here.
3. Track your progress
Take a sheet of paper and write down how many miles, steps or how long you walked today. Without tracking your progress you really don’t know how you are doing. If you like writing things down, you can track it on paper. However, for most people, a more convenient way to track their progress is by using an activity tracker or fitness watch. These tools count your steps (and a lot more) so you don’t need to be writing these things down yourself and can concentrate on your goals.
We really love the Polar m400 for tracking fitness results. But it’s quite expensive if all you’re going to use it for is counting your steps (it has a bunch of advanced functions).
Luckily, there is always the Xiaomi Mi Band 2! This band made it easy and especially cheap to count your daily steps, sleep, weight, and progress. It costs less than $40 and has all you need! We have tried these watches and can definitely say that the quality is excellent and it’s really worth the money. And it’s not just a step counter, it analyzes your sleep, tracks your weight loss progress, measures your heart rate and much more. If you are serious about fitness and your new goals – we really recommend checking it out.
You can buy the Xiaomi Mi Band 2 on Amazon.
4. Less Dreaming – More Doing
If you want to walk off fat you must walk it off, not dream about it. Most people fail because they don’t take action. They read articles, they dream, they plan, but they don’t do anything! Don’t be that kind of person and take action! The key to success is ACTION! Walking 15.000 steps every day for 2 months will lead you to real results, unlike dreaming.
5. Drink Water While Waking
Water is very important not just for your weight loss results, but for your overall health. Walking is exercise and while exercising you should drink at least 0.34 oz for 1 pound of your weight. If you weigh 150 pounds you should drink at least ~6.4 cups of water. We have a separate post about how drinking water can help you lose weight.
We also have a daily water intake calculator, so make sure to check it out!
6. Set A Correct Walking Intensity And Stick To It Throughout The Walk
This is one of the most important parts if you want to burn fat while walking. You must walk at the right intensity for great weight loss results and this is the key point! The right walking intensity for weight loss is light intensity or sometimes moderate intensity. That is when your body uses fat as the main energy source (at a high intensity your body uses glucose).
But light intensity varies for every single person – for a professional athlete jogging may be light-intensity training, while for a beginner in fitness jogging may be very high-intensity.
This is why you need to calculate your own heart rate zones.What works for your friend may not work for you.
Main point – your walking intensity for fat loss should be 60-70% of your maximum heart rate. If this doesn’t say much to you, we have a separate post about how to calculate heart rate zones – Lose Weight Faster With These 2 Formulas – so check it out!
Also, this is another reason why Xiaomi Mi Band 2 is worth the money! By using it you can calculate your resting heart rate (it helps you precisely calculate your heart rate zones) and most importantly it helps you track and stay in the correct heart rate zone while you are walking for weight loss.
This is very important! But using Xiaomi Mi Band 2 is not the one and only way to track training intensity. We have a whole article about this for you – Weight Loss Training Intensity: 5 Ways To Track It.
The Bottom Line: 6 Steps How To Start Walking For Weight Loss
1. Set both a long-term and daily goal
2. Make sure you have your favorite music or e-books on your phone
3. Drink water during your walks
5. Go and beat your daily goal every day
6. Track your progress and constantly improve
Attention if you want to lose weight!
If you are really serious about losing weight, simply walking for weight loss isn’t going to cut it. We highly recommend you invest in a precise plan, such as the 15 Day Di.et Plan!
With a mixture of different science-based strategies, dieters will not only learn how to maximize the body’s fat-burning potential and lose up to 15 pounds in just 15 days, but will also learn how to make sure their results are long term!
One of the best parts of the challenge – you don’t need to go to the gym. The 15-day workout guide can be done from the comfort of your own home or even while travelling.
So wait no longer and start your transformation now! Click here to learn more about the 15 Day Di.et Plan!
Losing weight is a lot easier when you’re not doing it alone! Join our free Facebook community for recipes, tips, and support from people who are going through the same journey as you!
This is a new community, so there aren’t a lot of us, but it’s all about quality, not quantity, right?