Can you lose a lot of weight with just walking?!?

I have been using the Leslie Sansone DVD's...and I love them!

Any exercise is great, but if you walk, it has to be really, really far.
Remember people are basically "made" to walk, our legs are longer than most animals and we can walk and jog longer than any other animal on the planet.

What I am saying is that its good, but its very efficient so you need to do a lot of it for it to show in weight loss.

You sure can. Back before I had my kids all I did was walk and between watching my diet and walking managed to lose 50 lb in 5 months, so definitely doable.

I am simplifying this a bit, but your body basically burns fuel in two ways. One is the combination of fat cells and oxygen burning to create energy to fuel your body (byproduct is carbon dioxide and water, which means you pee a lot!). This is known as operating in your aerobic zone.

The other way is when your body cannot get enough oxygen to create fuel. That is when you burn glycogen that your body stores. The byproduct of that is lactic acid, which is what makes your muscles sore.

Walking keeps your body within your aerobic zone (except in extremes) and is about as good as you can get for fat burning.

You can look up heart rate calculators on the internet that will let you know what your aerobic zone is. When you take a walk, bring a watch, count your heart rate for 6 seconds and multiply by ten. You will know if you are in your zone.

As you improve you will find you need to walk faster and may want to incorporate hills to challenge yourself. Endurance athletes use this zone to improve their aerobic fitness levels. Don't think that just because you can't get to a gym you can't improve as much. I'll bet you will leave the rest of us in the dust with your weight loss if you walk every day!

I have been using the Leslie Sansone DVD's...and I love them!

I agree. I use Leslie Sansone's Walk at Home DVD's and I love them as well...GREAT walking dvd's...and much more than walking. It really gets my heart rate up and they range from 1 mile to 5 miles. If you can't go outside due to rainy weather, they're a great tool to use! I use them even on nice days because I'm just more comfy in my house.

u can incorporate different things in your walk to help boost weight loss if you hit a plateu. I try to do high knees, kick ups, kick backs, etc. Do you have time warner cable? it has a fitness exercise channel that you can go thru and choose different exercises. Its a lot of fun and they have several different types of exercises belly dancing, kick boxing, tae bo, jillian, zumba.

If you want to work your way up to running you should try the y2k or couch2k its called something like that... it helps you get there over a period of time and you wont have the pain.

Good luck!

You can, that is how I lost most of my weight.
I ate less than I used too and i walked a few miles every night. I would loose track of time walking.

You don't need to buy any equipment at all. Not even dvds. Take your 3 year old to the park and do a run through of the playground: across the monkey bars, run across the bridge and slide down the slide-anything to get your heart rate up. Go on the playground with your little one and play with him. Freeze tag is fun too. (Of course you have to incorporate other kids at the park for this lol.)

You can also do circuits. Set up a routine you want to do...like: 10 jumping jacks, 10 lunges, 10 pushups, 10 squat jumps, 10 burpees, 10 step ups, etc. Do your routine a couple of times over and rest. If you'd like you can use time increments instead of reps-30 seconds of each exercise, go through one circuit, rest a very short period of time and repeat. If you give your all to each exercise I guarantee it will get your heart rate going. Make sure to warm up by walking or dancing in place for 5 minutes before you start.

Speaking of dancing, I bet your 3 year old loves to dance! I know my kids do. Throw on the radio and dance around the house with your little one, you'll both have fun and you'll work up a sweat.

You can even do yoga, and teach your child as well. I have 5 children and when my 3 youngest were little they were all learning yoga moves literally before they could walk. Make it fun and make your wee one a part of it and it will set a healthy example. :0) I had 3 babies under 3...5 kids under 10 when I first started trying to lose weight, I had to get really creative about it. I often had 2 or 3 toddlers hopping around in my living room with me "working out". I still have a pic of my youngest around the age of 1, in a diaper, trying to deadlift my barbell. It's hilarious. It can be a little frustrating at times to have them underfoot (a couple times I almost tripped over a squirt that I didn't know was behind me) but it's a great way to get healthy, spend time with your family, and get your family healthy too.

My 10 year old took her first kickboxing class with me this morning. It rocked!

You can definitely lose weight with walking and watching what you eat!

You can do intervals with your walking too. Intervals are 30% more effective at burning calories AND your post walk metabolism is raised for up to 12 hours. You can find more details on the net about intervals, but basically they are pushing harder and recovering for periods of time. Say you are walking your little one in the pram, you could walk as fast as you can manage for 2 or 3 minutes, THEN walk at a slow pace for 1 minute. Then repeat that again for the amount of time you want to work out. (30min, 3 times a week, absolute max will give you huge benefit.) A moderately easy pace for about 5 minutes of warm up and cool down before and after you do the intervals is also beneficial.

If you have a heart rate monitor (HRM) you can use that to hit specific heart rates to maximise the benefit. Intervals without a HRM are fantastic anyway though!

Adding littles bits of incidental exercise throughout the day will also contribute to your daily calorie burn.
Hope that helps!
Heidi

Walking is a great low impact exercise. You can walk fast and walk slow. The best walking coach to workout to is Leslie Sansone. I work out to her every night or when the weather is bad. Just walking and changing my food habit I already lost 17lbs in 2 months.

Yes, you can continue losing weight by walking alone. Just remember to push for longer walks and vary your terrain. The more you do it, the easier it will become to walk longer distances and maybe even run! A great tip is to measure your steps. Strive for 10,000 steps a day:) Keep on walking!!

I was wondering this too since I am so close to my goal...Is walking to lose weight more for heavier people compared to someone who has less to lose? I am currently doing Chalean Extreme for toning. Some days I will do a Leslie Sansone dvd and walk anywhere between 3-5 miles. However, I am wondering how effective it is since I have less to lose:huh: ?

For what it is worth, I also do a couple days a week of intense cardio as well. So, it isn't strictly Chalean or Leslie Sansone.

I don't have much options for a different type of exercise during the week and on the weekends im home with my 3 yr old. We don't have the money for a gym membership so I just walk a lot during the week and if im up to it zumba on the weekends for 20 to 25 min at a time. Will i be able to keep losing weight with just walking? I tried running but i hurt really bad for over a week straight so don't think i wanna try that again for a while. What do you mfp's think? So far since starting i have lost about a lb a week. But didn't know if i will stop losing like this if i don't change things up?

I personally know people that have lost weight with just walking alone, but their muscle tone wasn't very good.

A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

bump!

I walk and each and every day outside and its all I have done I have tried jogging but it is not my cup of tea so walking it is. I have gone so far from a size 24 to now a size 12 I will keep walking because its working.As for muscle I wear a weighted vest when I do walk and I do the sit ups.push ups and free weights to keep everything tight.