incline on treadmill to lose weight

Well done on starting to exercise regularly. You need to watch your diet to lose weight, regardless of the amount of exercise you do. Assuming you already do that, just use an incline that makes you slightly out of breath through your workout- you should be able to say a few words but not have a full blown conversation. Aim for at least 30 mins walking per day if you can.

Yep. I attribute all my weight loss to inclined walking. I created my calorie deficit through exercise alone. I've been going at it since the beginning of August. I don't count the last 30 days because I wasn't dieting then.

I am still trying to get my diet under control so that the burn from cardio can just be an added bonus because it's way easier to eat 500 calories than to burn it. Your weight loss journey will be a lot easier once you can refuse that 500 calorie snack altogether though.


Anywho, You can start at say an incline of 5%, but maybe you should just see how much incline you can take for say half a mile. Maybe try a hill interval program where the incline isn't intense the entire workout.

My current goal is to be able to walk at 3.5 mph with 15% incline for 60 minutes. I currently can walk 3 mph at 10% incline for 60+ minutes which maybe burns 400 or so calories... Maybe more.

I love inclined walking. Happy losing.

ETA: I cant recall how long it took before I saw results, but I've lost a total of 75 lbs to date... With 100 lbs more to go before I reach my ultimate goal weight..

knburch20 wrote: »

I've only been able to get up to about 3.4-3.6 mph and stay at the rate for most of my workout.

I'd suggest focus on pace rather than incline. When you can walk at over 4.5mph for an hour, then either start running or start to increase the incline.

I say continue doing what you're doing. Even a modest speed on a high enough incline can burn amazing calories. 2 mph at 15 incline, for example, can burn about 400 net calories an hour for a 150 pound person. This helps create a deficit without cutting too much into your food intake.

You have a few options, see which appeals most to you.
1. Start at 0 incline, increase speed gradually until you aren't able to walk any faster then start increasing incline.
2. Start at 15 incline with the a slow speed then gradually increase the speed.
3. Do "hills" or intervals where you walk a high incline at 85+ heart rate then recover at a low incline. Progress by increasing your speed.
4. Do pyramids, where you start at a low incline while keeping speed constant then increase incline every minute or two, then come all the way back down. This makes you not need warmup or cooldown because they're "built-in". Progress by increasing that constant speed.
5. Have a goal constant speed in mind and gradually increase the incline.
6. Any other system you prefer.

I do a mashup of both 2 and 3 where I do one or the other or both depending on what I feel like doing.

No matter how you do it, make sure to always have some kind of way to progress. Good luck. I personally think incline walking is amazing. Burns almost as many calories as running with being as high imact as running.