If I do the same exercise all the time does it stop becoming useful for losing weight?

Doing the same exercise all the time becomes less and less effective. The body is great at adapting so to challenge it which is what we need to do to continue to see results it is best to change the type of exercise. It is recommended to do so every 30 days to see better results. Try a kickboxing class or video, maybe Zumba or cycling if you have a bicycle. Your body will work harder as you challenge new muscles and you should see results.

I never understood that. If I burn 100 calories on my walk, and walk for a year, will that be less calories burned than 100 for the same type walk?

Great idea. I know you will see a difference.

You could kick it up a notch by incorporating some of the following:
Walk faster
Jog/walk
Add weights to your body
Add lunges, squats, burpees along the way
Walk backwards
...

You can definitely see improvement when you incorporate some or all of these moves into your walking routine.

There several factors that go into your calorie burn, one of them is your heart rate and how you keep it up over an extented period of time. If you walk all the time, your body adjusts and you burn less and less as you get into better cardio vascular shape. I have seen this with my running. I wear a heart rate monitor a fair amout of time, and I have seen as example; a year ago a 5k at 8:00 per mile burned more calories than a 5k at the same pace today. My body has adjusted and if I want to burn more cals, i need to change up my workouts, or work harder for longer. Try adding in some body weight "lifting" for a few weeks, and then jump that up to using some light weights. Plus keep walking, and throw in some running when you can. Good luck, and great job!!

lau444 wrote: »

I think it all boils down to the fact that our bodies become use to the exercise and don't need to exert as much energy as we improve stamina and endurance. I walk on the treadmill all the time, but as soon as I see that my heart rate isn't staying in the zone I want, I know it's time to start pushing myself more.

The effect this adjustement has to calories burned during walking or running is negligible. If you do it long enough, your body will learn to walk or run more efficiently, but this will be mostly of academic interest where calories burned are concerned. In the end, it is a matter of how much weight you carry, over what distance and at what speed.

sijomial wrote: »

Not really for walking - you are moving "x" amount of weight over "y" distance - that's the calorie burn not the perceived effort. There's not even going to be any significant change in efficiency for walking unlike some other exercises when you can become more energy efficient and get faster for the same effort (swimming for example).

The calorie burn will change as your weight drops though.

^ This is the truth. If you lose weight, you'll burn fewer calories walking/running/swimming/etc.-ing the same distance, because you have less weight to lose (though for cycling on flat ground, weight is less important than cross-section).

In some activities, form makes a huge difference to efficiency, and thus calorie burn, but not walking (unless you're race walking).

As you get fit, your heart rate for a given activity level will generally drop; the heart gets bigger and the muscles get more capillaries and become better at extracting oxygen from your blood. Most HRMs will estimate a lower calorie burn as your heart rate drops. But that's a limitation to the equation that they use, not an actual decrease in energy.

Exercise does not become "less effective" as your body "gets used to" it. Rather, your maximum capacity increases. Put me and Lance Armstrong on identical bikes. If we're riding side by side at 20 mph, we'll both be burning about the same amount of energy. The difference is that I would be close to my maximum speed, and thus energy expenditure, while he could crank it up to over 30 mph, and thus burn many more calories than me.

LynseyJx wrote: »

Thank you all for your quick replies Yeah I think I'm just going to push myself harder until I get out of breath and sweaty! My sister runs a lot, I've tried going with her a few times but I always feel a bit silly running because I don't look half as good as her, just a sweaty mess when I do it lol. But I will just have to push myself to do that and not care what I look like. I live in a place with lots of mountains, so when I walk it's all up hill, it just makes me a bit frustrate that it doesn't seem to help me lose any lbs

Pushing yourself harder will increase your endurance, it will not really burn more calories. Unless this means you will also walk a bigger distance.

[/quote] Pushing yourself harder will increase your endurance, it will not really burn more calories. Unless this means you will also walk a bigger distance. [/quote]

???
Say it ain't so.