Is walking a legitimate exercise?

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  • robindina
    robindina Posts: 157 Member
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    Yes I walked 2 miles today and consider it exercise...on the other hand I only count it if it is focused exercise and not just strolling.
  • CyberEd312
    CyberEd312 Posts: 3,536 Member
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    People will have different beliefs on whether it challenges them personally depending on their fitness levels but I would consider anything where your up off the couch and moving regardless to speed, distance, etc... to be exercise..... Best of Luck
  • strutdivastrut
    strutdivastrut Posts: 105 Member
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    Of course.
  • rosebette
    rosebette Posts: 1,659 Member
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    It's definitely exercise, and I count it as exercise if I walk over a mile. However, it doesn't burn a ton of calories. If you're someone who is sedentary and you start walking, then I think it will make a significant difference, but for someone who is fit, he might have to bump it up to the next level to get any kind of burn. It also makes a difference how much distance you cover in an hour because of course that increases your burn rate. The danger is for someone to say, "Oh, I took a walk, so I can eat that pastry at the coffee shop on the way back." (My husband and son do that all the time!) Because I'm small and my short little legs don't cover distance very fast, I burn only around 90 calories for a 30 minute walk, not even worth eating back those calories.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
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    I'm sick and tired of people saying "walking won't get you in shape", and "that's not exercise". What's your view on this subject? I walked two miles today. Was that exercise?

    Did you push yourself? For some people walking two miles is work. For others it's not. I don't call it exercise for me. For you it may be. It depends.

    You should go for a walk with me sometime, see if you still consider it unchallenging :-). Walking can be challenging, depends how much you walk and where you walk.

    Will only walking get you a sculpted toned fit bod...no. Will walking get you to a healthy weight and a decent level of fitness if you watch your calories? Yeah.

    Um okay . . .

    Come into my van
  • PinkyPan1
    PinkyPan1 Posts: 3,018 Member
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    It most definitely is exercise. Due to my fused spine I am limited on the type of exercises I can do. I power walk 4 miles every morning and I burn just under 300 calories doing so. I have only been power walking for 13 weeks and I have managed to 8.5 lbs while doing so.
  • Naydeen71
    Naydeen71 Posts: 2
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    I lost close to a 130lbs just walking back in 08. Walking is good =)
  • PunkyRachel
    PunkyRachel Posts: 1,959 Member
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    yes, its my main form of exercise
  • tycho_mx
    tycho_mx Posts: 426 Member
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    Silly question. Of course, it's relative.

    Is weightlifting exercise? sure. Is a power lifter doing presses with a 5 lb bar legitimately exercising? I'd say no. He'd probably not even notice he's doing it.

    It's relative to the capabilities of the person realizing the effort. I don't consider my 5 km bike commute exercise. It's insignificant compared to the rest of my riding, both in effort and length. For someone else, it might be all they can do.

    Same with walking. I had a severely sprained ankle. All I could do was walk slowly to rebuild the atrophied muscles on that leg. 10 min was very strenuous exercise at the time. Now I would hardly record any walking I do. It's not significant compared to the rest of my activities.
  • LoupGarouTFTs
    LoupGarouTFTs Posts: 916 Member
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    For me, walking did not help me lose weight, but man, did it improve my fitness! I remember being winded walking around the block when I started walking my neighbor's Siberian husky, Shiloh. Now, a year later, I can easily walk several miles with her, around the block, around the park, and back again. Now that I've started tracking meals on MFP, I've started losing weight, too, so I suspect I could have been doing so all along if I'd been watching my calorie intake when I started.
  • Nedra19455
    Nedra19455 Posts: 241 Member
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    Yes, in fact it's a very healthy and sustainable form of exercise. My favorite part about walking is that I can do it whenever I want -- I don't have to have special clothes or make time in my schedule to take a shower right afterwards. I can just go for a walk with my baby in the stroller.

    One great tool for folks whose primary form of exercise is walking is to get a fitness tracker that counts steps. I have a fitbit and average 14,000 steps per day. If I get to the end of the day and haven't hit 10,000, I do jumping jacks to make up the difference. It really encourages me to get moving! My fitbit also syncs with MFP and rewards me for my hard effort with an extra 200-600 cal per day. I never have to "log" exercise in MFP because the only cardio I do is step-based and the fitbit takes care of logging that with MFP for me.
  • breezybeees
    breezybeees Posts: 6
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    I think walking is exercise. Any time you chose to move your body over taking the car or sitting on the couch or at the computer is great!
    I walk 30 minutes a day and I feel a gazillion times better on days when I do it. I lose more weight on weeks when I do it than on weeks when I don't.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
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    Walking is exercise if you walk without stopping at a reasonable pace. If it's walking the dog or going to the mall and stopping every 2 minutes... no.
  • marilandica
    marilandica Posts: 88 Member
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    Tell the 107 lbs I'm no longer walking around with that it's not exercise. Mind you, I fitness walk an average of 25 miles per week at rates between 4-4.5 mph, plus I do longer hikes on the weekends. I don't log the general walking around I do during the day -- I just count that in my base activity level. But, I absolutely count and log the fitness walking I do daily.
  • leggup
    leggup Posts: 2,942 Member
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    I walk the dogs with a heart rate monitor. The shortest walk we do is 1.07 miles in 15-20 minutes (depending on potty stops). I normally burn 150ish calories on that walk. When we go on longer walks, they're around 3 miles in about 65 minutes and I burn between 300-400 calories. I have MFP set to sedentary, so I count all walking-to-exercise as exercise. If I put on a sports bra to walk it, I log it.
  • Leonidas_meets_Spartacus
    Leonidas_meets_Spartacus Posts: 6,198 Member
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    It is a very good exercise, I love walking.
  • pommesvertes
    pommesvertes Posts: 24 Member
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    This is an awesome thread to stumble across. Because of money/time/space restrictions, walking is just about the only thing I can fit in at the moment, it's nice that it's recognised positively.
  • sfbaumgarten
    sfbaumgarten Posts: 912 Member
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    Yes, it's a legitimate exercise.
  • Jestinia
    Jestinia Posts: 1,154 Member
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    Walking is great. Plus, if you walk on a nice sunny day, Vitamin D.
  • SephiraRose
    SephiraRose Posts: 775 Member
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    I feel walking is a great exercise for me.

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