Is walking every day enough?

PatriciaJane69 · June 2018

Hi everyone, the only exercise i do (apart from housework) is walking everyday between 1 and 2 hours,would this be enough exercise to help get my shape back,i have put weight on in the stomach area after having operation for ovarian cancer, my calories for the day are always low,feeling hopeful

TavistockToad · June 2018

enough for what?

PatriciaJane69 · June 2018

Sorry the rest of my message disappeared lol

Cherimoose · June 2018

Walking daily is good -- just watch for any pains that could signal doing too much, or a change in footwear.
Exercise isn't necessary for fat loss, only for fitness & health. Strength training helps, so perhaps take a class or do the program New Rules of Lifting for Life.

jillstreett · June 2018

Walking is great. Keeping calories low is probably the best thing you can do. From personal experience, I walk my dog a lot. I mean a lot, and it stopped working for me because my calories were not low enough. I think you have a good plan!

Diatonic12 · June 2018

In this day of extreme sports where people leap from helicopters onto snowboards and carve their way down the Grand Tetons, everyone and their cousin runs a marathon in every state and two on Sunday for good measure...

Somehow a person who goes for a walk or takes a hike feels the need to put the word 'just' in front of their accomplishment as in 'I just walked down the road for an hour and I wasn't even walking fast.' But let me tell you, you got dressed and walked for an hour at some speed above completely still. It's enough as you recover from delicate health conditions. Bravo! Good choice.

estherdragonbat · June 2018

For cardio, walking is great! It's my preferred exercise and I've seen my speed increase from roughly 2.8 to roughly 3.5mph in a year and a half. At my weight, I just walked 115 minutes and burned 498 calories (according to MFP's calculations).

Working in some strength training is also a good idea. It doesn't need to be a lot. I started with resistance tubes and bands and switched to light dumbbells. After a year, I'm lifting anywhere from a pair of 1lbs (starting a new exercise and concentrating on getting the form right first) to a pair of 20s. Are there people on these boards who are lifting heavy? You bet and more power to them! But I'm working out in my basement with no spotter, and my main goal right now is just to hang onto more of the muscle I've got while I lose. I'm not comparing myself to anybody but the (fatter and weaker) self I used to be and I'm seeing good results.

mbaker566 · June 2018

OP, weight loss is due to a calorie deficit. walking burns some calories which increases the deficit and helps increase the calorie allotment. make sure you don't do too much too fast. your body will let you know. good shoes can help minimize this too

welcome and good luck

Lounmoun · June 2018

PatriciaJane69 wrote: »

Hi everyone, the only exercise i do (apart from housework) is walking everyday between 1 and 2 hours,would this be enough exercise to help get my shape back,i have put weight on in the stomach area after having operation for ovarian cancer, my calories for the day are always low,feeling hopeful

It increases your activity level which can get you more calories.
I mostly walk for exercise too.

kiela64 · June 2018

It sounds awesome! One of my fitness goals is to be able to walk like that. I love walking outside.

I’ll only encourage you to check if you need a rest day, stretch, and check in with your body. Especially after surgery, be gentle on yourself.

Walking is low impact but not zero impact, and injury can happen (to me. It happened to me. Lol).

CarvedTones · June 2018

I mostly walk for exercise. I have gotten to where I am able to average ~4.25 mph on walks of up to 6 miles. It can become serious exercise.

fitoverfortymom · June 2018

Walking is super. When I was 256lbs, walking is about all I could do. I aimed for about an hour a day in addition to logging/tracking my calories on MFP.

spartan_d · June 2018

For cardio, walking is... okay. At the risk of offending some people here, it's not *great* in comparison to other cardio activities. It does have certain advantages, such as being unintimidating and low-impact. It's also a good form of active recovery during rest days. However, it won't do much to build up either muscular or cardiovascular endurance unless one is in really bad shape to begin with. Also, it does almost nothing for strength.

As a fat-burning activity, it's also relatively inefficient. This is especially true for walking as most people think of it -- an easy, relaxed pace on level ground. You can compensate for this by walking briskly, hiking up harsh terrain, or carrying heavy objects around.

I would never discourage someone from walking. It certainly has its place, especially for people who are just starting out or who have disabilities that prevent them from doing more vigorous activities. Just remember that when physicians and exercise authorities say that walking is "great" exercise, it's because they know that most people would balk at the idea of doing much more than that.

estherdragonbat · June 2018

*Shrug* My RHR is currently 56 bpm and it got there mostly through walking. And I've noticed significant improvements to speed and endurance. Now, strength training has probably helped there, too, but I'm not squatting more than 40lbs right now, so we're not talking about anything intense on either the cardio or strength front.

I never set out trying to walk briskly, but over time... it's happened. My normal walking speed is now 3.5 mph and the only thing I did to get there was walk every day.

spartan_d · June 2018

CarvedTones wrote: »

I mostly walk for exercise. I have gotten to where I am able to average ~4.25 mph on walks of up to 6 miles. It can become serious exercise.

This is an example of the brisk walking that I was talking about. If you do walk for exercise, anything less than a brisk pace is mostly a waste of time... though of course, it's still better than driving somewhere or sitting on the couch.

estherdragonbat · June 2018

At my weight, walking for an hour at

2.0 mph burns 171 calories
2.5 mph burns 205 calories
3.0 mph burns 226 calories
3.5 mph burns 260 calories

So roughly a difference of 90 calories between 2.0 and 3.5. It's significant, but I still wouldn't call 170-odd calories burned a waste of time. I mean, that's a 62-gram challah roll, or an ounce of roasted chickpeas plus a veggie dog, or more than two pieces of string cheese...

hesn92 · June 2018

Anything that gets you up and moving is good in my opinion. Getting more walking sprinkled Into my day made a significant difference in my total calories burned, plus it’s just good for you. Of course if we’re just comparing an hour of walking vs an hour of another type of exercise, walking is probably one of the lowest in terms of calories burnt.

Cake_Flanks · June 2018

I'm going to play a bit of devils advocate here. Seeing too much "Walking is great!"

Is it enough? That depends on your definition of 'enough.' It's certainly better than nothing but...

Walking + calorie deficit will result in general, and likely slow, weight loss, but our bodies are smart. It figures out what you're doing and adjusts your metabolism to compensate. Evolution is constrained by the laws of thermodynamics so all living things try to use as little energy as possible. I.E. You start dieting - Body will adjust your metabolism lower to compensate for the reduced calories. I.E. While you may see weight loss initially then taper off as your body adjusts. Unfortunately the only way to combat this is to increase your exercise and adjust your diet.

Depending on how your knees are I would highly recommend the Couch to 5k program. Anybody can do this. If you can walk or shuffle you can do C25k. I would also say look into mixing in some High Intensity Interval Training which is basically you walk for two minutes, then jog for 2 minutes and get your heart rate up to about 80% of your maximum (I'm 46 so that means I have to get my HR up to 145 and above), then walk for 2 minutes to lower your heart rate back down. Google it, you'll find all kind of info on HIIT and HIIT vs Steady State Carido etc..

While steady state jogging is good HIIT (IMO) is better for weight loss and helps combat your bodies ability to adjust to what you're doing.

Mixing in some light weight training would not go amiss either. Muscle burns more energy than fat does (I mean Fats main job is to -store- energy after all) so increasing muscle mass means you will burn more calories by default to maintain that increased muscle.

I'd point you to this clip from Bojack horseman that illustrates exercise (and jogging specifically) pretty succinctly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2_Mn-qRKjA

The other part is diet. Cut out all simple carbohydrates. No soft drinks, no table sugar (White raw or otherwise) no Juice, no white rice, no white bread etc.. I'm big into the Keto lifestyle so am a huge carb Nazi, but for most people Keto is hard to maintain in the long term, but the science is pretty much in that simple carbohydrates are no bueno.

To summarize you'll probably be disappointed or frustrated in the results of just walking + mild dieting. It's certainly better than nothing, but I say step it up!

Good luck!

CF

TonyB0588 · June 2018

PatriciaJane69 wrote: »

Hi everyone, the only exercise i do (apart from housework) is walking everyday between 1 and 2 hours,would this be enough exercise to help get my shape back,i have put weight on in the stomach area after having operation for ovarian cancer, my calories for the day are always low,feeling hopeful

Congratulations!! That's a lot of walking. It will certainly help with weight loss especially as you're keeping your calorie intake low as well.

It probably won't do as much for toning specific muscles as you'd get from a structured program, but that's not always necessary. All the best to you on your fitness journey.

Psychopasta · June 2018

I totally rate walking as an exercise form. It's cheap and easy to do. Difficult to make much money coaching people to walk, however

These days people put so much effort into HIIT etc because they get the same energy expenditure in a shorter time, and I get that. But the energy taken to climb a hill is the same whether you walk or run, the difference is the power (energy/second). You need more power to run up the hill, sure, but it's energy that matters. that's why it's calories in, calories out, not watts in, watts out.

stanmann571 · June 2018

Cake_Flanks wrote: »

I'm going to play a bit of devils advocate here. Seeing too much "Walking is great!"

Is it enough? That depends on your definition of 'enough.' It's certainly better than nothing but...

Walking + calorie deficit will result in general, and likely slow, weight loss, but our bodies are smart. It figures out what you're doing and adjusts your metabolism to compensate. Evolution is constrained by the laws of thermodynamics so all living things try to use as little energy as possible. I.E. You start dieting - Body will adjust your metabolism lower to compensate for the reduced calories. I.E. While you may see weight loss initially then taper off as your body adjusts. Unfortunately the only way to combat this is to increase your exercise and adjust your diet.

Not generally enough to matter.

Depending on how your knees are I would highly recommend the Couch to 5k program. Anybody can do this. If you can walk or shuffle you can do C25k. I would also say look into mixing in some High Intensity Interval Training which is basically you walk for two minutes, then jog for 2 minutes and get your heart rate up to about 80% of your maximum (I'm 46 so that means I have to get my HR up to 145 and above), then walk for 2 minutes to lower your heart rate back down. Google it, you'll find all kind of info on HIIT and HIIT vs Steady State Carido etc..

While steady state jogging is good HIIT (IMO) is better for weight loss and helps combat your bodies ability to adjust to what you're doing.

Not really, since total calorie burn for a HIIT session is 1/4-1/2 that of a steady state session

Mixing in some light weight training would not go amiss either. Muscle burns more energy than fat does (I mean Fats main job is to -store- energy after all) so increasing muscle mass means you will burn more calories by default to maintain that increased muscle.

Not enough to matter

I'd point you to this clip from Bojack horseman that illustrates exercise (and jogging specifically) pretty succinctly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2_
Mn-qRKjA

The other part is diet. Cut out all simple carbohydrates. No soft drinks, no table sugar (White raw or otherwise) no Juice, no white rice, no white bread etc.. I'm big into the Keto lifestyle so am a huge carb Nazi, but for most people Keto is hard to maintain in the long term, but the science is pretty much in that simple carbohydrates are no bueno.

This is total nonsense.

To summarize you'll probably be disappointed or frustrated in the results of just walking + mild dieting. It's certainly better than nothing, but I say step it up!

Good luck!

CF

Is walking every day enough?

Replies

Categories