Can we lose weight by walking?

In our previous post we saw that NEAT - Non Exercise Active Thermogenesis - can help us to burn more calories in our day to day, and potentially help with weight loss. That being said, there’s a big difference between physical activities and EXERCISE.

Exercise is planned, organized, has a purpose and usually is more intense than day-to-day physical activities. Today we’ll talk about walking as an exercise, as it still is one of the most common approaches used by people who want to lose weight. So can you really lose weight by walking?

As often, the answer here is IT DEPENDS. Many factors will influence whether or not you’ll lose weight by walking, such as your age, body mass, where you’re walking (hills vs flat) and for how long, and probably the most important: your current fitness level, or in other words, how good at walking you currently are.

The ACSM - American College of Sports Medicine - recommends 200-300 minutes of moderate intensity exercise a week, for long-term weight loss and prevention of weight regain for adults (1). Moderate intensity is something that makes us breathe harder and our hearts to beat faster, but not too much. It’s an intensity that we can somewhat maintain a conversation as we exercise.

So if you haven’t been walking neither doing any other form of exercise, it’s likely that you’ll lose weight if you start walking regularly. As the months go by and you get fitter, results will probably plateau, and then you’ll need to walk longer or choose harder paths.

Even a 3-5% weight reduction can lead to diminished health risks, so we highly recommend that you start exercising, if you haven’t yet. Vigorous intensity activities, like running or lifting weights can bring even more benefits, while demanding a lot less time, but that’s a topic for another day. Keep moving, friends!

Willian Alba

1) PMID: 19127177