Is walking every day enough?
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Christine_72 wrote: »Walking is the only exercise i do. Sure, i could join a gym and do more structured and hectic workouts, but i know i would never go because i just wouldn't enjoy it..
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it's something my dog and I enjoy and really look forward to.
And that's it in a nutshell.
Find something you enjoy and do it regularly, then it's not a chore.
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PatriciaJane69 wrote: »Thank you everyone for your replies, your thoughts and advice have been very helpful, ,i do enjoy walking and i have the pleasure of going along the coast & cliff tops so i get a good view
, i will carry on as i am for now and see hiw i go, ✔
Some advice I was given when I was doing alot of hill walking - if you want to keep being able to do alot of hill walking then use walking poles. They take a lot stress off the knees . I'm not talking about nordic walking, swinging them along on the flat, just for the ups and downs.
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Ok,thank you ✔0
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I had an ovary removed year before last with what turned out to be a very large benign tumor. My stomach was HUGE thanks to the cortisol being cranked out by the tumor, which causes fat to be deposited in the abdomen. If you are in a similar situation with your belly fat, it will take a while to see results, but there is hope.
At first after my operation I wasn't fit at all and had difficulty walking long distances. I slowly worked up to more exercise and now can run 5k, lift weights, do push-ups, etc. It's just a matter of slowly building on what you can do.
Walking is not the perfect exercise for this situation - higher intensity exercise plus strength training will have a better effect on cortisol levels and insulin sensitivity, which is also connected to abdominal fat and cortisol levels. I also found that using an ab roller and doing planks helped to correct the diastasis recti caused by the tumor, but you probably should not do that yet, and get the doctor's clearance first. But walking is a good start and better than not walking. The good news is you don't need to do high intensity exercise for long periods of time to get the benefits - ten or fifteen minutes helps a lot. And you can add a little bodyweight strength and even use household items like water bottles as weights. I started by just swinging bottles around while I watched TV.3 -
It's enough!
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Why would doing it more inefficiently be better?paperpudding wrote: »
There's a difference between slow and inefficiently slow. One should strive to lose weight at a moderate rate. Walking, however, is a really inefficient way to lose weight in comparison to other forms of exercise.estherdragonbat wrote: »What the heck is wrong with slow weight loss? Losing too rapidly isn't good for your body or your hunger levels.
"But I lost 60 lbs by walking!" some would say. Good for you, but you could have probably done that more quickly with some full body workouts and some more vigorous forms or cardio --- all without losing weight too rapidly.
Why would doing it more quickly be better ??
Time is limited and very few people come anywhere close to losing the maximum amount of fat per week. The more quickly you can lose the fat -- within a safe margin, that is -- the better.
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Why would doing it more inefficiently be better?paperpudding wrote: »
There's a difference between slow and inefficiently slow. One should strive to lose weight at a moderate rate. Walking, however, is a really inefficient way to lose weight in comparison to other forms of exercise.estherdragonbat wrote: »What the heck is wrong with slow weight loss? Losing too rapidly isn't good for your body or your hunger levels.
"But I lost 60 lbs by walking!" some would say. Good for you, but you could have probably done that more quickly with some full body workouts and some more vigorous forms or cardio --- all without losing weight too rapidly.
Why would doing it more quickly be better ??
Time is limited and very few people come anywhere close to losing the maximum amount of fat per week. The more quickly you can lose the fat -- within a safe margin, that is -- the better.
But that's entirely due to deficit, which is primarily based on diet, not exercise. Unless you're training like Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps and eating like them as well, a reasonable diet and walking is quite sufficient.
But by all means, you do you. Just stop telling other people they're doing it wrong.17 -
There's a difference between slow and inefficiently slow. One should strive to lose weight at a moderate rate. Walking, however, is a really inefficient way to lose weight in comparison to other forms of exercise.estherdragonbat wrote: »What the heck is wrong with slow weight loss? Losing too rapidly isn't good for your body or your hunger levels.
"But I lost 60 lbs by walking!" some would say. Good for you, but you could have probably done that more quickly with some full body workouts and some more vigorous forms or cardio --- all without losing weight too rapidly.For fat loss, walking is definitely less efficient that running, for example.
Can you lose the same amount of fat per day? Sure, if you're willing to put in at least twice as much time. So in principle, while you CAN lose just as much fat by just walking, this isn't bloody likely to happen.
Not to mention that you won't develop as much strength or endurance, to cite just a couple of other factors.stanmann571 wrote: »
There's a difference between slow and inefficiently slow. One should strive to lose weight at a moderate rate. Walking, however, is a really inefficient way to lose weight in comparison to other forms of exercise.estherdragonbat wrote: »What the heck is wrong with slow weight loss? Losing too rapidly isn't good for your body or your hunger levels.
"But I lost 60 lbs by walking!" some would say. Good for you, but you could have probably done that more quickly with some full body workouts and some more vigorous forms or cardio --- all without losing weight too rapidly.
Probably not. Since regardless of how active you are, there is a limit to how much fat can be cut per day. And that's GENERALLY in the 1-2% BW per day range for health and safety.
So Overall deficit is what matters, and walking is no more or less efficient than any other activity Or No activity.
In practical application, If you're actually training hard, and feeding your training appropriately, you should lose more slowly as the fat loss will be partially offset with muscle gain HTH.
You keep posting the same comment over and over, with minor changes, exercise is a minor factor in weight loss. and for most people, the sort of activity they choose is irrelevant, as long as they get their diet under control. And if they don't get their diet under control, they'll need to train like an Olympian to see any meaningful benefit.12 -
Why would doing it more inefficiently be better?paperpudding wrote: »
There's a difference between slow and inefficiently slow. One should strive to lose weight at a moderate rate. Walking, however, is a really inefficient way to lose weight in comparison to other forms of exercise.estherdragonbat wrote: »What the heck is wrong with slow weight loss? Losing too rapidly isn't good for your body or your hunger levels.
"But I lost 60 lbs by walking!" some would say. Good for you, but you could have probably done that more quickly with some full body workouts and some more vigorous forms or cardio --- all without losing weight too rapidly.
Why would doing it more quickly be better ??
Time is limited and very few people come anywhere close to losing the maximum amount of fat per week. The more quickly you can lose the fat -- within a safe margin, that is -- the better.
Doing it more inefficiently would be better if one enjoys walking more than running (or more vigorous cardio, or full body workouts, or whatever).
Doing it more inefficiently would be better if one is very new to exercise, out of shape, and daunted by the idea of more vigorous or technical forms of activity. (There's plenty of time to evolve there. Starting is the tough bit.)
Doing it more inefficiently would be better if one is relatively new to exercising, concerned about potential injury as a risk of major setback (this can apply especially to those of us who are aging, and who recover from injury more slowly but detrain faster than young'uns).
Doing it more inefficiently would be better if one is recovering from a major physical stressor, like, say, cancer and cancer treatment.
An inefficient workout that someone enjoys, that feels easy and safe, is a workout that person will actually do. Any workout that a person will actually do > a workout that feels unpleasant, daunting, risky so the person doesn't do it.
I don't know how many of the above apply to OP, though context suggests some do.
Your point was valid and useful. You've made it. I suspect you know a lot about exercise. Cool.
I think you don't know very much about being a somewhat older woman trying to lose weight, and regain health and fitness after cancer treatment that involved major surgery. It's just an intuition, though.
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stanmann571 wrote: »markgnicholson wrote: »I totally rate walking as an exercise form. It's cheap and easy to do. Difficult to make much money coaching people to walk, however These days people put so much effort into HIIT etc because they get the same energy expenditure in a shorter time, and I get that. But the energy taken to climb a hill is the same whether you walk or run, the difference is the power (energy/second). You need more power to run up the hill, sure, but it's energy that matters. that's why it's calories in, calories out, not watts in, watts out.
Not quite true, due to mechanical efficiency walking uses about 1/2-2/3 the energy of running.
I walk and am mostly happy with it. But as far as HIIT (which you had a more direct comment on earlier), there are 2 very different forms IMO. There is HIIT as "discovered" by track coaches cross training distance runners and finding that their carefully controlled diet wasn't high enough in calories once they started doing this. They were getting an increase in burn that lasted quite a while after the exercise. but these were elite athletes whose "slow" part of HIIT is what a lot of people doing popular HIIT do as the high intensity part. The popular version is Somewhat High Intensity Training.
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Why would doing it more inefficiently be better?paperpudding wrote: »
There's a difference between slow and inefficiently slow. One should strive to lose weight at a moderate rate. Walking, however, is a really inefficient way to lose weight in comparison to other forms of exercise.estherdragonbat wrote: »What the heck is wrong with slow weight loss? Losing too rapidly isn't good for your body or your hunger levels.
"But I lost 60 lbs by walking!" some would say. Good for you, but you could have probably done that more quickly with some full body workouts and some more vigorous forms or cardio --- all without losing weight too rapidly.
Why would doing it more quickly be better ??
Time is limited and very few people come anywhere close to losing the maximum amount of fat per week. The more quickly you can lose the fat -- within a safe margin, that is -- the better.
Doing it more inefficiently would be better if one enjoys walking more than running (or more vigorous cardio, or full body workouts, or whatever).
If you look closely though, I never said that one HAS to deny themselves activities that they enjoy.
The question asked was "Why would doing it more quickly be better ??" It's because all other things being equal, more efficient IS better. This is so axiomatically true that it scarcely needs defending. Being less efficient isn't as good. Of course, if somebody is more likely to stick with the less efficient activity - for whatever reason -- then that matters as well.
The argument that stanmann571 keeps making is that it doesn't matter how quickly you burn the calories, since there's a maximum rate at which one can safely lose weight. This reasoning is positively daft, since the vast majority of people will not lose weight at anywhere near this maximum rate.
stanmann571 also says that a calorie deficit matters more than exercise. That is true, and dietary changes are indeed more important -- but this does NOT make the exercise aspect insignificant. Not to mention that more vigorous exercise provides a host of other benefits.
The following quote from the WebMD article that I cited earlier sums it up:But a decade after the famous study's release, some researchers argue that we've been sold a bill of goods. "Exercise lite is to exercise what lite beer is to beer. It's pretty bland stuff," says Paul Williams, PhD, an exercise scientist at the Life Sciences Division of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California. "Exercise lite has given many Americans a false sense that a stroll through the neighborhood is all you need to stay healthy. Instead of pushing people to be more active, it's given them an excuse to do as little as possible."9 -
Why would doing it more inefficiently be better?paperpudding wrote: »
There's a difference between slow and inefficiently slow. One should strive to lose weight at a moderate rate. Walking, however, is a really inefficient way to lose weight in comparison to other forms of exercise.estherdragonbat wrote: »What the heck is wrong with slow weight loss? Losing too rapidly isn't good for your body or your hunger levels.
"But I lost 60 lbs by walking!" some would say. Good for you, but you could have probably done that more quickly with some full body workouts and some more vigorous forms or cardio --- all without losing weight too rapidly.
Why would doing it more quickly be better ??
Time is limited and very few people come anywhere close to losing the maximum amount of fat per week. The more quickly you can lose the fat -- within a safe margin, that is -- the better.
Doing it more inefficiently would be better if one enjoys walking more than running (or more vigorous cardio, or full body workouts, or whatever).
If you look closely though, I never said that one HAS to deny themselves activities that they enjoy.
The question asked was "Why would doing it more quickly be better ??" It's because all other things being equal, more efficient IS better. This is so axiomatically true that it scarcely needs defending. Being less efficient isn't as good. Of course, if somebody is more likely to stick with the less efficient activity - for whatever reason -- then that matters as well.
The argument that stanmann571 keeps making is that it doesn't matter how quickly you burn the calories, since there's a maximum rate at which one can safely lose weight. This reasoning is positively daft, since the vast majority of people will not lose weight at anywhere near this maximum rate.
stanmann571 also says that a calorie deficit matters more than exercise. That is true, and dietary changes are indeed more important -- but this does NOT make the exercise aspect insignificant. Not to mention that more vigorous exercise provides a host of other benefits.
The following quote from the WebMD article that I cited earlier sums it up:But a decade after the famous study's release, some researchers argue that we've been sold a bill of goods. "Exercise lite is to exercise what lite beer is to beer. It's pretty bland stuff," says Paul Williams, PhD, an exercise scientist at the Life Sciences Division of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California. "Exercise lite has given many Americans a false sense that a stroll through the neighborhood is all you need to stay healthy. Instead of pushing people to be more active, it's given them an excuse to do as little as possible."
What you're not getting is that the difference in calorie burn while real is insignificant. Especially when taking into account that walking at 3.5 mph can be done in street clothes and may not require showering immediately after whereas running at 5 mph will require changing before and showering after.
https://www.runnersworld.com/nutrition-weight-loss/a20843760/running-v-walking-how-many-calories-will-you-burn/
hypothetical 200 lb person
Walk calories per mile-3 miles nets 342 calories in 51 minutes
.57 x wt in lbs
Run calories per mile-3 miles nets 432 calories in 36 minutes+ 5 minutes to change+ 10 minutes to shower+5 minutes to dress 56 minutes.
.72 x wt in lbs6 -
stanmann571 wrote: »
Why would doing it more inefficiently be better?paperpudding wrote: »
There's a difference between slow and inefficiently slow. One should strive to lose weight at a moderate rate. Walking, however, is a really inefficient way to lose weight in comparison to other forms of exercise.estherdragonbat wrote: »What the heck is wrong with slow weight loss? Losing too rapidly isn't good for your body or your hunger levels.
"But I lost 60 lbs by walking!" some would say. Good for you, but you could have probably done that more quickly with some full body workouts and some more vigorous forms or cardio --- all without losing weight too rapidly.
Why would doing it more quickly be better ??
Time is limited and very few people come anywhere close to losing the maximum amount of fat per week. The more quickly you can lose the fat -- within a safe margin, that is -- the better.
Doing it more inefficiently would be better if one enjoys walking more than running (or more vigorous cardio, or full body workouts, or whatever).
If you look closely though, I never said that one HAS to deny themselves activities that they enjoy.
The question asked was "Why would doing it more quickly be better ??" It's because all other things being equal, more efficient IS better. This is so axiomatically true that it scarcely needs defending. Being less efficient isn't as good. Of course, if somebody is more likely to stick with the less efficient activity - for whatever reason -- then that matters as well.
The argument that stanmann571 keeps making is that it doesn't matter how quickly you burn the calories, since there's a maximum rate at which one can safely lose weight. This reasoning is positively daft, since the vast majority of people will not lose weight at anywhere near this maximum rate.
stanmann571 also says that a calorie deficit matters more than exercise. That is true, and dietary changes are indeed more important -- but this does NOT make the exercise aspect insignificant. Not to mention that more vigorous exercise provides a host of other benefits.
The following quote from the WebMD article that I cited earlier sums it up:But a decade after the famous study's release, some researchers argue that we've been sold a bill of goods. "Exercise lite is to exercise what lite beer is to beer. It's pretty bland stuff," says Paul Williams, PhD, an exercise scientist at the Life Sciences Division of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California. "Exercise lite has given many Americans a false sense that a stroll through the neighborhood is all you need to stay healthy. Instead of pushing people to be more active, it's given them an excuse to do as little as possible."
What you're not getting is that the difference in calorie burn while real is insignificant. Especially when taking into account that walking at 3.5 mph can be done in street clothes and may not require showering immediately after whereas running at 5 mph will require changing before and showering after.
https://www.runnersworld.com/nutrition-weight-loss/a20843760/running-v-walking-how-many-calories-will-you-burn/
hypothetical 200 lb person
Walk calories per mile-3 miles nets 342 calories in 51 minutes
.57 x wt in lbs
Run calories per mile-3 miles nets 432 calories in 36 minutes+ 5 minutes to change+ 10 minutes to shower+5 minutes to dress 56 minutes.
.72 x wt in lbs
I think we're arguing to an empty room, as the OP seems to have moved on.
There are additional benefits to higher intensity exercise which are significant in terms of this particular health condition. It's not all about the calorie burn - she asked about getting her shape back, and the hormones involved in ovarian cancer can do a number on your waistline and insulin resistance, completely apart from weight gain.
However, your point about what people are willing to stick with and Ann's point about injury are both valid. Never let perfect become the enemy of good! Walking is good. Doing a little more - when she is fit and able to do it - would probably be even better. But walking is still good.7 -
rheddmobile is correct. I most certainly do not deny the value of sticking with something that you enjoy. That doesn't diminish the fact that more intense exercise yields a host of benefits.
Not to mention that you're comparing the calorie burn per mile rather than the number of calories burned over the same period of time. Factoring in the time to shower and change clothes is a squirrelly move at best, especially since someone can plan around those activities to eliminate that overhead. A lot of people shower before going to bed, for example, so this adds no overhead if one schedules the run accordingly. Or, since sensible exercises will also incorporate some resistance training, adding the more vigorous cardio after this strength training eliminates that overhead as well.
Based on the numbers, I'd also wager that the calorie burn in this hypothetical example includes the base metabolic calorie consumption consumed during that period. You burn more calories just by sitting around for 60 minutes than you would over a 30 minute period. To make an accurate comparison, it's not simply the total number of calories consumed that matter; it's the total number of calories burned due to the exercise in question.3 -
To expand on what I said earlier, this analysis shows that the increased calorie burn from running is much more significant than what stanmann571 said. Not to mention that it has additional relevant benefits, such as greater appetite suppression and (as @rheddmobile said), better hormone regulation.
The article does correctly emphasize some of the advantages of walking, such as increased risk of injury. It does, however, illustrate that running is much more efficient. I'd argue that it's also better at building enough of a cardio base for one to do eventually much more vigorous exercise (extended hill repeats and interval training, for example) in which the increased calorie burn would be much more significant.
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Huh? Increased risk of injury? Typo?To expand on what I said earlier, this analysis shows that the increased calorie burn from running is much more significant than what stanmann571 said. Not to mention that it has additional relevant benefits, such as greater appetite suppression and (as @rheddmobile said), better hormone regulation.
The article does correctly emphasize some of the advantages of walking, such as increased risk of injury. It does, however, illustrate that running is much more efficient. I'd argue that it's also better at building enough of a cardio base for one to do eventually much more vigorous exercise (extended hill repeats and interval training, for example) in which the increased calorie burn would be much more significant.
I can't run anymore; it's too painful with the meniscus tears (they don't really repair them, they do things to make them less troublesome and clean up the "loose matter" from the tears and other wear that get in the worst places during movement and cause a lot of the pain. I am not quite a candidate fr replacement and I am not sure I wold want to yet (age 59). I walk pretty briskly, ~4.3 mph, and I often walk up and down a nearby hill with a 200' rise. I burn some calories. My favorite high burn exercise that I can do is SUP paddling. If you are paddling hard with few breaks, the burn is in the high hundreds per hour. I hope I am still active enough to keep doing it when I retire and live at/on water. But walking will likely be a primary exercise.0 -
Walking works it’s cardio so you burn a lot of calories so in combination with your low fat diet you should see results. I had a baby by c-section, so I was in too much pain to do anything but walk in the beginning, I had to heal first so I walked. I was determined to start losing the baby weight and I lost 40lbs in 2 1/2 months, so go ahead and walk off the pounds! Good luck!8
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Which low-fat diet?1
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Why would doing it more inefficiently be better?paperpudding wrote: »
There's a difference between slow and inefficiently slow. One should strive to lose weight at a moderate rate. Walking, however, is a really inefficient way to lose weight in comparison to other forms of exercise.estherdragonbat wrote: »What the heck is wrong with slow weight loss? Losing too rapidly isn't good for your body or your hunger levels.
"But I lost 60 lbs by walking!" some would say. Good for you, but you could have probably done that more quickly with some full body workouts and some more vigorous forms or cardio --- all without losing weight too rapidly.
Why would doing it more quickly be better ??
Time is limited and very few people come anywhere close to losing the maximum amount of fat per week. The more quickly you can lose the fat -- within a safe margin, that is -- the better.
Why would doing it more inefficiently be better?paperpudding wrote: »
There's a difference between slow and inefficiently slow. One should strive to lose weight at a moderate rate. Walking, however, is a really inefficient way to lose weight in comparison to other forms of exercise.estherdragonbat wrote: »What the heck is wrong with slow weight loss? Losing too rapidly isn't good for your body or your hunger levels.
"But I lost 60 lbs by walking!" some would say. Good for you, but you could have probably done that more quickly with some full body workouts and some more vigorous forms or cardio --- all without losing weight too rapidly.
Why would doing it more quickly be better ??
Time is limited and very few people come anywhere close to losing the maximum amount of fat per week. The more quickly you can lose the fat -- within a safe margin, that is -- the better.
I disagree that doing it slowly is doing it inefficiently.
and I disagree that the more quickly you can lose fat, even within a safe margin, the better.
Losing weight is a marathon not a sprint - and not a competitive race.
What is better is individual -the way and the pace that suits the individual.
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Required for what???
MY excercise mainly consisted of walking - at medium pace and not for as long as 1 -2 hours.
Worked fine for me.5
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