Walking for weight loss can be an unbelievably powerful tool when it comes to up regulating your fat burning metabolism.
If we’re strictly talking about fat loss, walking 10,000 steps every day is infinitely better than running. Yup, you read that right.
Don’t believe me? It’s how one of my students inside the Fat Loss Accelerator was able to lose 25 lbs and drop 6 dress sizes without going to the gym and lifting weights because she was dealing with some injuries. All she did was walk 10,000 steps every day.
But there are some mistakes with walking that I have seen a lot of people make that actually prevents then from losing weight. Or worse, might even people start gaining weight.
In this video, I’m going to share with you 3 walking for weight loss mistakes so you can use walking efficiently as a tool to achieve your weight loss goals.
Walking for weight loss: Explained
I released a video on my YouTube channel about why getting into chronic cardio patterns like running every day is one of the worst things you can do if you’re trying to lose weight. I also released a video on whether walking 10,000 steps every day leads to weight loss. You can watch them here.
It definitely struck a chord with a lot of people into why they’re not losing weight. Even though they’ve put in countless of hours running or they’ve burned ‘x’ amount of calories. But it hasn’t translated to pounds off the scale
So after I released those videos, a lot of people became inspired to start walking for weight loss. It’s something that I recommend to a lot of my students because the entry level is so low.
You don’t even need actual running shoes. You can just go for a walk with whatever type of shoes you’re wearing.
In my opinion, that is actually one of the biggest benefits of walking. It promotes movement throughout the day.
And that’s actually where mistake number one comes in.
Walking for weight loss: Mistake #1
You’re not walking enough.
The average North American gets about 4,774 steps every day. I think that’s a pretty generous average.
The problem is, even with that number, that’s not nearly enough to move the needle.
Because 2 out of 3 American adults are classified in either the overweight or the obese category. So, the average American adult is overweight.
That’s no bueno.
Which means that you need to get at least double that 4,774 step average every day. That’s where the 10,000 steps a day milestone comes in.
That’s also where having a fitness tracker, like a Fitbit, becomes extremely handy when it comes to keeping track of how many steps you’ve taken.
When you actually start tracking your steps without changing any of your habits, you’re going to be shocked by how little steps you actually take throughout the day.
But hey, step number one is awareness.
That’s why you just want to start with walking if you’re a complete beginner.
Getting 10,000 steps a day brings a boat load of benefits to your body because it forces you to move throughout the day.
Your number one job is to avoid prolonged periods where you’re completely sedentary. There are even studies that shows that sitting can be as bad as smoking.
Now, I don’t really know the accuracy of that comparison. But if there’s even any hint of truth to that, then you definitely want to avoid sitting for long periods of time.
Personally, I’ve just noticed that my posture wasn’t as good when I was sitting for long periods of time. So I started working on a stand up desk.
Now, I don’t even notice the difference. It also puts me in prime walking position.
Outside of a crappy diet, lack of sleep, and chronic stress, nothing promotes weight gain more than just being a couch potato.
And one of the best ways to up regulate your fat burning metabolism is by simply walking. Because again, it forces you to move your body.
But you need to get a certain threshold and that’s where getting 10,000 steps a day comes in.
Now, 10,000 steps roughly equates to about 1 hour and 40 minutes of walking. You can just divide that up throughout the day.
If you work at an office, it always blows my mind in how many smoke breaks smokers get and it’s socially acceptable.
You can use that exact same leverage and go for a 5-10 minute walk while they’re smoking.
Another way for you to get your steps in is by purposely parking a little bit further when you’re going to the grocery store or the mall. You can also walk to your mail box. Go for a walk during your lunch break.
This works extremely well if you’re intermittent fasting because you can just walk instead of eating to boost your fat burning metabolism even more.
If you have a dog, take your dog out for a walk. I always say that if your dog is fat, you’re not getting enough exercise.
Walking for weight loss: Mistake #2
The second mistake is power walking/almost jogging/
There is a world of difference in terms of exercise physiology between actually just walking vs power walking/almost jogging.
The former, walking, actually helps you burn fat.
While the latter, power walking/jogging, is going to burn mostly glucose and make you crave something sugary afterwards. And you can only fight those temptations for so long.
I work out of coffee shops a lot. It blows my mind when I see runners come in, or people coming from group fitness classes like Spin, order their skinny vanilla latte with 5 pumps of “sugar free” syrup. As well as an “energy” bar to go with it which is basically just granola swimming in sugar.
They just erased all the good they did from their workout. And now they have elevated insulin levels which puts them in fat storage mode.
Walking instead almost guarantees that you stay in the aerobic zone. That’s below your maximum aerobic heart rate. where you’re burning mostly fatty acids for energy.
It’s the infamous fat burning zone. It exists.
On the other hand, power walking or jogging is a little bit harder. So you’re going to start increasing your cortisol levels, which is your stress hormone, because you’re putting stress in your body.
That is actually going to start working against your weight loss goals especially if you start doing it every day.
You’re also going to go past your maximum aerobic heart rate and you’re going to start burning an increasing amount of glucose to fuel your fast pace.
You don’t want that.
The goal is to burn body fat. So you want to stay below your maximum aerobic heart rate You can figure that out by taking 180 minus your age in beats per minute (BPM).
If you’re 40 years old for example, your maximum aerobic heart rate is 140 BPM (180 – 40 = 140 BPM).
Now, I don’t really recommend a lot of things in terms of supplements like protein powders. Because you don’t need to eat as much protein as you think. And I definitely want you to eat your protein instead of drinking it.
But if you have an extra couple of bucks, I highly recommend that you get a fitness tracker with a heart rate monitor.
It just makes your life so much easier because it keeps track of your steps and your heart rate. You can even set it to notify you to move every hour or so.
If you get one and you use it every day, and you should, it’s absolutely worth it.
Notice how I didn’t mention calories burned during exercise?
Unless you’re a professional athlete burning tens of thousands of calories, it’s basically irrelevant.
If you’ve ever seen Michale Phelps’ legendary diet when he’s training, it’s insane. He’s also a multiple gold medal winning olympic swimmer. So, he’s basically not human.
But that’s why people get caught up and start power walking or jogging because they want to burn more calories.
You don’t want to do that.
That’s just going to trigger a compensatory appetite response. Again, because you’re burning glucose. Which then triggers sugar cravings. And you can only fight your physiology for so long.
Long story short, as you burn more calories, you also eat more calories.
And if you don’t eat the right type of calories, you’re probably going to start gaining weight instead of losing it. Keep that in mind.
For this specific scenario, harder in terms of intensity isn’t always better. Instead, more, i’m taking about even exceeding 10,000 steps every day is better.
And it’s really hard to overdo this. Remember, this is how we evolved to move as human beings. Our Paleolithic ancestors regularly walked 5 miles a day and they were all naturally lean and strong.
Walking for weight loss: Mistake #3
You’re not pairing walking with the proper diet.
Again, walking is a great first step for a lot of people. Especially if you’re someone who’s been living a sedentary lifestyle all this time. But, it’s just that. It’s only the first step.
Walking and introducing movement throughout the day falls into the supportive lifestyle choices category in terms of weight loss. Which only contributes to about 20% of your results.
If you really want to move the needle, you need to focus on your diet. 80% of your body composition is determined by what you eat.
You can take baby steps on this as well.
Start by taking out the biggest offenders in your diet which are grains, and this includes brown rice and whole wheat bread, sugar, and toxic seed oils like canola, sunflower, soy bean, and safflower oil.
All those things belong in the trash.
Instead, I want you to revolve your diet around plants and animals. I want you to focus on eating single ingredient, mostly unprocessed, nutrient dense foods.
Stop eating 6 or 7 meals a day. Instead, just eat two or three big meals. Bonus points if you can shorten your eating window and start getting into intermittent fasting to boost that fat burning mechanism even more.
Schedule your cheat meals so you don’t ever feel deprived. Yup. I’m that guy who believes in cheat meals. You can have it. Just not all the time.
I believe in delayed gratification and being able enjoy your favourite treat every once in a while.
If you pair walking with all the things that I just mentioned, I guarantee that you’re going to lose weight.
As always, if this was helpful, share it with a friend who could benefit from it as well!
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