Does walking actually help?

Pointless for building muscle probably. It depends on your goal. If your goals is to get 10/10 glutes cardio it's not the way. If you want just to up your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) I know a super fat guy who started with waddling around in his bed

Anyone that says cardio is pointless doesn't know what they are talking about and should be ignored. If you check out statistics on weight control, walking scores very high (maybe highest) on "habits of healthy weight people".

Eating less makes you lose weight (under TDEE).
Doing physical activity makes you better.

I find it better to just separate these two things out in your head and you will be much better off.

Walking is Cardio...just at a steady pace.

Can't say I have lost a decent amount of weight by walking - (down 5.3kg/11.6lb so far) I find my body reacts better to HIIT training (e.g. intervals on the treadmill). On weeks I only walked a lot but didn't do any HIIT I barely saw a difference in the scale.

Walking is a great cardio exercise that if you get enough of will provide health benefits. The CDC says to get 150 minutes of moderate cardio per week and brisk walking fits the bill. They also say to get muscle strengthening activities 2x/week hitting all major muscles groups.

However, if you want to lose weight, the focus should be on calories in vs calories out. You can create a deficit without doing any exercise. This isn't to say stop exercising, but exercising more isn't the answer either.

I've lost 45lb, and do a combination of weight lifting, walking, and running (very little running outside of Ultimate). However, I only contribute ~10-20% of my weight loss to exercise at best (pretending I didn't eat back any exercise calories). In reality, my diet was set to lose weight regardless of if I exercised, and if I did, I just ate more.

I'd say walking makes the biggest difference for me. I go to Barry's Bootcamp a couple of days a week but the biggest difference is that I don't own a car and walk everywhere. I never log walking so it's just 'extra' calories burned and I'm so used to it I don't think about it.

I walk on my lunch break at work every day for about 20 minutes, and I've noticed in the two weeks doing it that my clothes are fitting looser, but no change on the scale yet.

olivia_roland wrote: »

Ok, so I've heard a lot of pros and cons to the whole "walking to lose weight" discussion. I know walking has a lot of health benefits, but has anyone actually lost a decent amount of weight by walking? I love walking outside. The fresh air is great and it makes me feel better. But a lot of people have told me that cardio is pointless and I'm just really confused.

Help please. Any advice on this topic would be greatly appreciated.

Walking definitely helps. I started walking (around a parking lot at first) and worked my way up to 2 miles six days a week. The combination of eating better and walking lowered my cholesterol into "perfect" range. I still have a lot of weight to lose but I credit the walking with already improving my health.

Walking probably accounts for 80% of my exercise and I've lost almost 30 pounds. Yes, it's totally worth it.

Its not as simple as that in my opinion.

Weight loss is a matter of having a deficit, which focuses on what & how much you eat. But calories in and calories both matter. If you increase your activity (walking) you may or may not lose weight. There are too many ifs. If you increase your activity and also increase your calories in (you may be hungrier with the extra walking) you probably won't see a weight loss. If you increase your activity AND make a conscious effort to track/log accurately what you're eating, and eat at a deficit: you should lose weight. Then again, you can do the logging and tracking and having a deficit without walking. But walking does have other added health benefits as well.

olivia_roland wrote: »

Ok, so I've heard a lot of pros and cons to the whole "walking to lose weight" discussion. I know walking has a lot of health benefits, but has anyone actually lost a decent amount of weight by walking? I love walking outside. The fresh air is great and it makes me feel better. But a lot of people have told me that cardio is pointless and I'm just really confused.

Help please. Any advice on this topic would be greatly appreciated.

walking definitely burns more calories than not walking, so will help you create a deficit. Im going for a walk this evening to burn around 200 calories.. so itll contribute towards my weight loss. making subtle changes, like walking to the shops/school instead of driving can easily add 200-300 hundred calories to your daily burn, so a good habit to get into.

Vtbostongirl wrote: »

I used to have this thought too. Until I met my amazing Primary Care Doctor who told me to stop running. He said that he does weight loss studies and has found that running doesn't provide many more health benefits than walking. He said that actually running does more harm to your body than walking or other low impact exercise. He himself lost over 60 pounds just from eating right and walking every day. He told me to stop running and replace it with at least 45 minutes of walking a day and that the weight would fall off!

Your primary care doctor also runs research studies?

I've lost 68 pounds (and have reached my goal weight) and my primary activity is/has been walking. As others have said, walking alone will probably not be enough for you to lose weight, but when it is combined with healthy, portion-controlled eating, it certainly helps! Plus you listed many of the physical, psychological, and emotional benefits of walking. Keep it up!