Has anyone had success with walking for exercise?
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^ My progress since January, following the calorie restriction and walking for exercise.
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queenliz99 wrote: »I work for an orthopedic surgeon and every day he tells people that walking is good for the heart but bad for the knees. While it provides a cardio burn, it does nothing for strengthening your legs. You'd be better off on a bike or an elliptical.
Oh my fricken stars! Are you kidding me? We've been walking on two feet for millions of years and now we have to ride a bike or use a elliptical because of some supposed expert. Not buying it.
Not buying it either, with the caveat that most of our ancestors were not overweight and most of us are, which does put extra stress on the knees.
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Im severely overweight at 299. Down from 314. I have been eating better and started walking a few months ago. I wanted to start being active and build my strength up before adding anything else. A few days a week I do hand weights- 5 lbs nothing crazy. I feel great! I feel stronger and empowered and healthier
thats a win in my eyes! Walking has so many awesome benefits and is a great easy and cheap way to grt started on the right track. I started with a half mile walk a few times a week and built up to 2 miles 4 days a week. I increase slowly so my body can adjust. Im just enjoying the journey 
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Yes! Count your steps! It's mostly how I lost a lot of weight!0
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Wow. Come back to the boards for the first time in over a year and instantyl have to defend myself.
A. I am not an expert. I work for one.
B. On a daily we see people, many of whom are overweight, with knee pain. Some have a healthier weight. He always asks the patient what they do for exercise and many times we hear walking, whether it be 1-2 to several miles, daily or several times a week.
For patient's with non-arthritic knees (and no other acute injury) he does not say no walking , but he does encourage exercises that strengthen the quadriceps, particularly the VMO (vastus medialis obliquus) or the inner part of the quad muscle group. Strong quads help support and lift the knee joint, and the VMO in particular helps lift the patella off the femur to keep it from grinding and wearing down causing patellofemoral pain or chondromalacia.
Want to walk for exercise? Have at it! Just balance it out with some simple straight leg raisies and other quad strengthening exercises. Having some knee pain? Re-think the walking.
Most of us are here because we are carrying extra weight. That is extra pressure on your knees each time your feet strike the ground. You only get one set of your own natural knees, and knee replacements are a tough road to recover from, not to mention getting a TKA before 60 will probably not last your lifetime leading to the need for revisions. Why not take care of the set you have?
Finally. I repeat, I am NOT an expert. I am just someone who sees a lot of people in pain everyday and have the distinct privilege of working for a man who has been practicing for 29 years, cared for our local professional, college, and high school athletes, and considers a conservative approach over the surgical one whenever possible.
So, with that, I guess I will run away from the boards again until this experience has faded away.0 -
Walking is an excellent way to get off the sedentary lifestyle train. The ASCM recommends a minimum of 150 minutes a week as the basis for being considered physically active, which is pretty minimal, when you think about it.
However, there is a limit to how much aerobic energy one can expend through walking as there is an upward limit to how fast we can walk and even brisk walking will only raise your heart rate so much.0 -
I lost around 5 stone through walking a lot of miles, just passed 3000 miles since I start logging in August 2014.
My initial workings was I needed to loose 500 calories from diet every day, so I dropped them as best I could. Without weighing everything it was never going to be entirely accurate. So i added walking, after doing some research (albeit 10 minutes googling) I should be doing around 3 miles a day before doing anything else - I work from home so there isn't too much walking involved. At the time of starting a mile (according to my logging app) was about 100 calories (its not that now), so I decided I needed to do 8 miles a day to keep on top of things.
That worked out a couple of miles in the morning taking the little people to school, 4 miles at lunchtime and then some more in the evening. Normally smashing the 8 miles per day.
I now do about 6-8 miles per day - other workouts have been added at lunchtime. I do need to increase it though as I have a goal of 3,000 miles for this year.
So it can be done and it can be infectious to other around you.
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yes, definitely
I'll always included the time walking in my cal allowance, I lost as planned and now I'm maintaining as planned0 -
Walking is one of the most underestimated "exercises". I did a reverse "freshman 15" (although I lost more than 15) my first semester at college & have kept the habit since. Helps prevent osteoporosis as well0
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Wow. Come back to the boards for the first time in over a year and instantyl have to defend myself.
A. I am not an expert. I work for one.
B. On a daily we see people, many of whom are overweight, with knee pain. Some have a healthier weight. He always asks the patient what they do for exercise and many times we hear walking, whether it be 1-2 to several miles, daily or several times a week.
to be fair, the statement you made before suggested that walking was an exercise that damaged the knees. What you actually appear to mean is that walking is not a great exercise for those who already have knee issues. No one is disputing that walking, as with any exercise, may exacerbate an existing condition, but it is also recommended as a great weight-bearing exercise to prevent osteoporosis.
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Sassenach1017 wrote: »I was wondering if anyone out there, has had a successful weight loss with walking? I started walking at the beginning of June, it is my main form of exercise. I was planning on incorporating some running.
I walk, but I have always walked and hiked, even when I was at my heaviest last year at 105 pounds overweight. Did I walk often enough? Clearly not, but I could still walk for a couple of hours or more when I got my butt out from behind my desk. Was I fit? Nope. I didn't walk often enough to make that stick.
It wasn't weight loss (which I'd already committed to doing, scared into it by the prospect of poorer future health) but lack of fitness that caused me to want to start running last September. At the same time I made some relatively minor changes to my eating habits and over the course of the next four months lost 30 pounds. The combo of increased activity and reduced intake certainly are effective in improving health and fitness and reducing waistlines.
Walking is great - no question - but as a former distance runner years ago I know how fit I could become, in a shorter period of time, if I adopted running again. I also wanted to challenge myself to get as aerobically fit as I could. And... I used to love running, and hoped I would again. I do!
So I started running; believe me I did not love it much last September when I couldn't run even 1km without stopping, frequently, wheezing. Mostly I hated myself for allowing me to get to such an unhealthy and unfit state, but I knew that would not last if I persisted.
I stuck with it, and as a result on Sunday I ran 34km and at a half decent clip. I never would have believed that amount of progress possible when I started out, unfit and 105 pounds too heavy, but I knew that if I kept challenging myself, I'd progress. I was 53 when I started this journey and it was a looong time ago when I was a marathon runner; now at 54 I will be a marathon runner again, no question, although my true love is mountain trail running.
I don't have any G rated before and after body pics handy at the moment but this gives a bit of an indication of what 105 pounds overweight looks on me and what a fit me looks like 68 pounds lighter. I'm another 12 pounds lighter since then.
This isn't an advertisement for running so much as it is a call to push ourselves beyond what we can imagine. Some like to walk or hike. Some run. Some cycle. Some use the gym. I like to run outside in the fresh air, rain or shine, and more often than not in the mountains.
We are all much stronger than we believe ourselves to be before we start down the road of health and fitness improvement. Push hard!
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Wow. Come back to the boards for the first time in over a year and instantyl have to defend myself.
A. I am not an expert. I work for one.
B. On a daily we see people, many of whom are overweight, with knee pain. Some have a healthier weight. He always asks the patient what they do for exercise and many times we hear walking, whether it be 1-2 to several miles, daily or several times a week.
For patient's with non-arthritic knees (and no other acute injury) he does not say no walking , but he does encourage exercises that strengthen the quadriceps, particularly the VMO (vastus medialis obliquus) or the inner part of the quad muscle group. Strong quads help support and lift the knee joint, and the VMO in particular helps lift the patella off the femur to keep it from grinding and wearing down causing patellofemoral pain or chondromalacia.
Want to walk for exercise? Have at it! Just balance it out with some simple straight leg raisies and other quad strengthening exercises. Having some knee pain? Re-think the walking.
Most of us are here because we are carrying extra weight. That is extra pressure on your knees each time your feet strike the ground. You only get one set of your own natural knees, and knee replacements are a tough road to recover from, not to mention getting a TKA before 60 will probably not last your lifetime leading to the need for revisions. Why not take care of the set you have?
Finally. I repeat, I am NOT an expert. I am just someone who sees a lot of people in pain everyday and have the distinct privilege of working for a man who has been practicing for 29 years, cared for our local professional, college, and high school athletes, and considers a conservative approach over the surgical one whenever possible.
So, with that, I guess I will run away from the boards again until this experience has faded away.
I feel like you should throw the Hodgetwin disclaimer on the end. "That's just my take on it. That's just my advice. At the end of the day, you can do whatever the f*** you wanna do!!" Lol.
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Sassenach1017 wrote: »I was wondering if anyone out there, has had a successful weight loss with walking? I started walking at the beginning of June, it is my main form of exercise. I was planning on incorporating some running.
I walk, but I have always walked and hiked, even when I was at my heaviest last year at 105 pounds overweight. Did I walk often enough? Clearly not, but I could still walk for a couple of hours or more when I got my butt out from behind my desk. Was I fit? Nope. I didn't walk often enough to make that stick.
It wasn't weight loss (which I'd already committed to doing, scared into it by the prospect of poorer future health) but lack of fitness that caused me to want to start running last September. At the same time I made some relatively minor changes to my eating habits and over the course of the next four months lost 30 pounds. The combo of increased activity and reduced intake certainly are effective in improving health and fitness and reducing waistlines.
Walking is great - no question - but as a former distance runner years ago I know how fit I could become, in a shorter period of time, if I adopted running again. I also wanted to challenge myself to get as aerobically fit as I could. And... I used to love running, and hoped I would again. I do!
So I started running; believe me I did not love it much last September when I couldn't run even 1km without stopping, frequently, wheezing. Mostly I hated myself for allowing me to get to such an unhealthy and unfit state, but I knew that would not last if I persisted.
I stuck with it, and as a result on Sunday I ran 34km and at a half decent clip. I never would have believed that amount of progress possible when I started out, unfit and 105 pounds too heavy, but I knew that if I kept challenging myself, I'd progress. I was 53 when I started this journey and it was a looong time ago when I was a marathon runner; now at 54 I will be a marathon runner again, no question, although my true love is mountain trail running.
I don't have any G rated before and after body pics handy at the moment but this gives a bit of an indication of what 105 pounds overweight looks on me and what a fit me looks like 68 pounds lighter. I'm another 12 pounds lighter since then.
This isn't an advertisement for running so much as it is a call to push ourselves beyond what we can imagine. Some like to walk or hike. Some run. Some cycle. Some use the gym. I like to run outside in the fresh air, rain or shine, and more often than not in the mountains.
We are all much stronger than we believe ourselves to be before we start down the road of health and fitness improvement. Push hard!
Good for you!! WTG. Loved your story. Wishing you continued success.0 -
Spliner1969 wrote: »I found you can burn more calories in shorter distances walking fast than running. It simply takes longer.
Congrats on your 80 pound loss @Spliner1969!
I'm curious how you came to the determination I quoted above. Was that via a Fitbit or similar device?
For both running and walking calorie burn is primarily about distance and less about speed, with one peculiar exception for walking: competitive speed walking at the upper limits of capability of most mortals results in calorie burn approaching running because such movement is not as efficient as at slower speeds.
For 99% of walkers, breaking into a run - for any distance, at any pace, will always burn more calories per unit of distance than walking the same distance at walking pace. Almost double the calories.
That calorie burn rate difference alone isn't a good reason to run but might factor into a decision for some. Myself I simply did not find walking challenged my body enough to develop the level of fitness I want to reach for... only vigorous activity will do that.
@47Jacqueline47Jacqueline wrote: »Walking is an excellent way to get off the sedentary lifestyle train. The ASCM recommends a minimum of 150 minutes a week as the basis for being considered physically active, which is pretty minimal, when you think about it.
However, there is a limit to how much aerobic energy one can expend through walking as there is an upward limit to how fast we can walk and even brisk walking will only raise your heart rate so much.
Indeed. And from the "it seems to be common sense" department, a study published earlier this year sought to answer the question: is incorporating more vigorous activity (such as running or fast cycling) into one's lifestyle more beneficial in the long run (meaning reducing risk of death in middle aged persons) than simply adding more moderate activity (such as brisk walking) regular moderate to vigorous activity (not walking)?
The answer appears to be "yes".
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2015/04April/Pages/Vigorous-exercise-could-help-prevent-early-death.aspxWhat were the basic results?
During the study, 7,435 of the 217,755 participants died:- 8.3% of those who did no MVPA
- 4.8% of those who did 10 to 149 minutes of MVPA a week
- 3.2% of those who did 150 to 299 minutes of MVPA a week
- 2.6% of those who did 300 minutes or more or MVPA a week
After taking potential confounders into account, this meant that compared with those who did no MVPA, the risk of death during the 6.5 years of follow-up was:- 34% lower in those who did 10 to 149 minutes of MVPA a week (hazard ratio0.66, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.61 to 0.71)
- 47% lower in those who did 150 to 299 minutes of MVPA a week (HR 0.53, 95% CI 0.48 to 0.57)
- 54% lower in those who did 300 minutes or more or MVPA a week (HR 0.46, 95% CI 0.43 to 0.49)
Among those who did at least some MVPA, doing more of that activity as vigorous activity was associated with a reduced risk of death during follow-up:- 3.8% of those who did no vigorous activity died
- 2.4% of those who did vigorous activity that accounted for less than 30% of their total MVPA died – a 9% reduction relative to those who did none (HR 0.91, 95% CI 0.84 to 0.98)
- 2.1% of those who did vigorous activity that accounted for 30% or more of their total MVPA died – a 13% reduction relative to those who did none (HR 0.87, 95% CI 0.81 to 0.93)
The researchers found similar results when they looked at people with different BMIs, people who did different amounts of MVPA, and in people with or without cardiovascular disease or diabetes.
How did the researchers interpret the results?
The researchers concluded there was an "inverse dose-response relationship" between the proportion of MVPA done as vigorous activity and the risk of death during follow-up.
They say this suggests that vigorous activity "should be endorsed in clinical and public health activity guidelines to maximise the population benefits of physical activity".
The good news for both walkers and runners is they gain significant benefit - a much lower risk of death compared to their sedentary cohorts - from engaging in regular activity. I'm pleased to see a measurable improvement in longevity associated with regular vigorous exercise because that it feels like common sense.
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I feel like you should throw the Hodgetwin disclaimer on the end. "That's just my take on it. That's just my advice. At the end of the day, you can do whatever the f*** you wanna do!!" Lol.
Pretty much. After all, I do earn a living because people mess up their knees.0 -
I walk a 1/4 mile everyday down a steep hill and back up. I started at 250 and now am just under 200 pounds for the first time in 22 years. If I had started at 400 pounds I may would have destroyed my knees. The point is what is good advice for one may be bad for another. I self treat but if one goes to a doctor then they should try to follow the doctor's advice or get a new doctor in my view.0
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I'm a type two diabetic. In December 2014 my A1C was 7.2 and the doctor wanted to put me on a second medication. I'd already been on Metformin for years. I decided enough was enough. As the winter was so cold here I had to wait til the spring to really get out there and exercise. Once March rolled around I started walking. Eventiually I incorporated running into my walking sessions. Slowly over time I began to run more than walking. By June I'd lost 20 lbs and when I went back to the doctor my A1C was 5.8 and the doctor took me off Metformin. I never did take the second drug, especially since a little research showed that drug can cause liver problems. Walking will definitely do your body some good but if you can add running to your routine that will be even better.0
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Walk 3 mph for thirty minutes or 3.5 mph for twenty minutes, three times a week. Do that for a month and by then your legs should be strong enough to start jogging. I dropped ten pounds my first month from doing that (and logging of course) and another fifteen the next month when I started running. Having great music to run with helps too!0
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If everyone can be brutally honest....
Do you think walking has helped with the weight loss or do attribute it more to a calorie deficit?
FTR- I walk 10ish miles most everyday, but I never get my heart rate up even though I average 120-125 steps a minute. I cant say if it's the walking, which doesn't feel like work, or eating less calories...0
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