Walking To Lose Weight

Did you know that walking to lose weight is an unbelievably powerful strategy you can use?

It’s been proven in numerous studies to actually boost fat loss without you having to exert much effort at all. 

It’s something you can do every day without changing your diet or working out until you puke at the gym. In fact, your body will thank you for it.

Yes, it can have that big of an impact to your fat loss goals.

Today, I’m gonna go over some of the benefits of walking as well as exactly how to set this up properly so you can lose fat even faster. 

It does’t matter if you’re just trying to lose those last 5 lbs or you want to lose 50 lbs. You’re gonna benefit from it either way.

Walking To Lose Weight – EXPLAINED

I get it. You might be thinking, how is walking gonna help me lose more fat? For starters, it does’t burn as much calories as running.

Honestly, I used to think the exact same way. But now, I’m a believer. My only regret is I wish I started sooner.

My brother is my favourite recent example of this. He lost 13 lbs of fat and 2 inches off his waist in 5 months just by adding walking to his regular routine.

Another coaching client of mine, she had a little bit more weight to lose, also lost 25 lbs of fat in 6 months just by walking every day. 

There are also numerous studies that backs this up. One study shows that participants lost 17 lbs in 6 months by going for a brisk walk every day. My aforementioned students kinda falls within those numbers.

They were able to do this without any changes to their diet. Imagine how much more fat you can lose if you actually changed your diet. 

The magic number is you want to aim to get at least 10,000 steps every day. You can obviously do more. I personally average about 12-15k steps per day. 

But, baby steps. Try to hit 10k steps first and see what that looks like. 

If you have a lot of weight to lose, you’re gonna be shocked how well your body will respond to this.

The benefits of walking

This is because walking epitomizes the concept of addition by subtraction. It forces you to avoid prolonged periods where you’re completely sedentary.

Why is that important? It’s because nothing shuts down your fat burning metabolism faster than prolonged periods where you’re not moving.

On the contrary, walking up regulates your fat burning metabolism.

Maximum aerobic heart rate

From a physiological standpoint, it almost guarantees to keep you below your maximum aerobic heart rate. 

That’s where you reap maximum aerobic benefits, with minimum anaerobic stimulation. Walking almost guarantees to keep you in the fat burning zone.

To find out your maximum aerobic heart rate, you can use Dr. Phil Maffetone’s formula where you simply take 180 minus your age. That’s your personal number in beats per minute.

For example, if you’re 33 years old like me, your maximum aerobic heart rate is 147 BPM (180 – 33 = 147 BPM). 

Your job is to stay below that number every time you do cardio if you want to stay in the fat burning zone. 

Again, walking almost guarantees to keep you below that number because you don’t feel like your heart is about to explode when you do it. 

But if you’re a numbers guy like me, that’s how you figure out your number. It’s always good to know.

Yes, walking doesn’t burn as much calories as running. But rest assured, the calories you do burn is coming from fat. Walking is a perfect example of less is more.

How many calories does walking burn?

But in general, you’ll burn off anywhere between 2800 to 3500 extra calories if you walk 10,000 steps every day.

That’s nothing to scoff at. If you think about it, most diet programs are aimed to put you on a 3500 calorie deficit every week which translates to about a pound of fat lost. 

Again, this explains why walking produces weight loss results without altering other parts of your lifestyle.

As you can see, this is when you can really speed up fat loss when you do make positive changes to your diet and lifestyle. You’re just stacking one strategy on top of another.

How to get in more walking steps

If you’re new to this and that 10,000 step count seems really daunting, there are ways to make it so it’s not hard to accumulate it.

If you’re already active, an extra 30-40 minutes of walking should suffice. 

But if your only form of exercise is walking back and forth to the fridge, then you’re gonna have to make some changes like taking the stairs instead the elevator. 

Parking your car further away from the entrance of wherever you’re going. The spots that are a bit further away are always open. It also prevents your car from getting dinged.

You can walk your dog more. I always like to say that if your dog is fat, you’re probably not getting enough exercise. 

If you don’t have a dog, walk your neighbours dog or volunteer at an animal shelter. You can talk your calls while walking. Schedule walking dates. 

If you’ve been following my channel and you’re doing intermittent fasting, go for a walk during your lunch break. Small little changes like that add up to staggering results over time.

If all else fails, go for a longer walk at the end of the day. But that should be a last resort option. Again, it works better if you break it up to avoid prolonged periods where you’re completely sedentary during the day.

Now you might be asking, how do you know if you’ve accumulated 10,000 steps? Well, tracking your steps has never been easier.

If you have an extra couple of bucks, you can buy a Fitbit or an Apple watch to also track your heart rate which I highly recommend. 

But again, there are level to this. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t have a fitness tracker.

Nowadays, if you own a smart phone it’ll most likely have the ability to track your steps.

If you don’t have a smart phone, don’t fret. As long as you get in an extra hour of walking outside of your daily routine, that’ll get you to 10,000 steps 99% of the time.

Walking makes you earn your carbs

Here’s where it gets better. If you’re really active, it also gives you a little bit more flexibility when it comes to your diet. 

I personally think this is one of the biggest reasons why I’m able to have a cheat meal or even two every week and get away with it. 

If you follow my personal account on social media, you’ll see that I’m always doing something. I’m like a little energizer bunny.

Think about how much more enjoyable your weight loss journey can be if you have a little bit more wiggle room when it comes to the amount of calories you’re able to eat. That’s an absolute game changer.

The good thing about walking is you can’t really overdo it. As long as you stay below your maximum aerobic heart rate, walk until the cows come home.

If anything, it promotes even greater gene expression. Remember, our Paleolithic ancestors regularly walking 5 miles every day and they were all naturally lean and strong.

Simply put, our bodies are designed to move. I personally start to feel anxious when I haven’t moved all day. It’s as if my body telling me something.

Walking also helps when it comes to your workout recovery, or if for some reason you’re really sore or you can’t make it to the gym, walking is a great alternative.

But wait, it gets better. I sound like a used car salesman right now.

The biggest practical benefit of walking is the barrier of entry is zero. 

Anybody can do it. Adherence is the biggest determining factor when you’re starting something new. There’s no easier way to get moving than by simply walking.

Again, if you haven’t worked out since gym class in high school, and the idea of going to the gym scares the heck out of you, just go for a walk.

Trust me when I say your life will change. Also, there’s also almost zero risk of injury from walking. It’s unbelievably easy to stick to. 

You’ll always find 99 reasons to skip a run. I personally hate running. I know I’m not the only one on that. 

Whereas, it’s so much easier to stay consistent by going for a daily walk. 

Consistency is everything when it comes to getting results. Especially when it comes to fat loss and being able to maintain those results in the long run.

If you’re already someone who regularly works out, and this was me when I integrated walking into my routine, it won’t negatively impact your workouts. 

If anything, it only adds to it. Because again, it helps with recovery.

Walking to lose weight mistakes

Now, let’s talk about some common mistakes.

The biggest one is thinking that more intense is better. This is when you start jogging instead of just walking. You don’t want to do that.

This is why I talked about figuring out your maximum aerobic heart rate at the beginning of this video. It’s key that you know your number. 

Because if you go past it, when you start jogging or even power walking because you feel like it’s a better workout because it burns more calories. 

Your body’s preferred fuel choice shifts from burning fat at lower intensity, to an ever increasing percentage of glucose.

Why? Because it’s quicker and easier to burn when oxygen is lacking because of your fast pace. You know, when you start huffing and puffing?

The crazy part is when you burn glucose during your workout, you’re also teaching your body to burn sugar at rest. Even after your workout. Because your body adapts to whatever fuel source is always available. 

Again, your body is really smart. It’s an adaptation machine.

This is why you’re always craving something starchy and sugary after a long hard run. And it’s unbelievably easy to undo all the benefits you just got from your workout with one bad meal.

Why you’re not losing weight on cardio

This is also the number one reason why you see the same people sweating their hearts out on their favourite cardio machine 7 days a week burning hundreds of calories every day but they look the same. 

I’m not saying you should never go for a run by the way. Once or twice a week? Do it. It has its own benefits. 

But if your goal is to just be a healthy and happy human being and look good shirtless while you’re at it, you should do way more walking than running.

In this scenario, less is more.

Walking to lose weight can break a weight loss plateau

Adding in more steps is also an excellent strategy if you’ve hit a weight loss plateau. By doing this, you can break through any weight loss plateau without cutting even more calories.

Once you make it a habit, it’ll feel unnatural to skip. You’ll body will almost start craving it. Because again, physiologically it promotes optimal gene expression. Remember, the body’s natural default setting is healthy.

The best strategy to stay consistent with this is to get the majority of your steps in early during the day. That’s why I’m such a big advocate of going for a walk first thing in the morning.

This works a lot better than waiting at the end of the day because there always seems to magically be 99 reasons that come up that will make you want to skip out on your walk. Especially if you have a lot of steps left.

If you plan on walking after work, there’s also a good chance you’re gonna be tired. That’s what’s gonna trigger all the other excuses that’s gonna start popping in your head.

The non-scale benefits of walking

On the other hand, if you make time to get most of your steps out of the way first thing in the morning, the rest of the steps that you’re gonna take is just icing on the cake.

Going for a walk first thing in the morning and exposing your eyes to the morning sun also helps resets your circadian rhythm. Which means you’ll get better sleep.

You’ll also get some much needed vitamin D from the sun. It’ll put you in a positive mood and increase your energy levels, which is just gonna set up the rest of your day for success.

Research has also shown that walking is twice as effective for managing high blood sugar compared to prescription medication like Metformin. 

This is especially true if you do multiple 10 minute walks rather than one long walk at the end of the day.

Walking after a meal also increases insulin sensitivity by up to 30% and it lowers the blood glucose response by up to 50%. That’s mind blowing. Just by simply walking.

The faster you can regulate your blood glucose and insulin, the faster you’re gonna lose fat.

This is because you’re giving your body a reason to use some of the glucose you ingested from your last meal. You’re burning it for energy right away which means it won’t get stored as fat.

Again, it’s as if the human body is designed to do this.

How to incorporate walking into your daily routine

One last thing you can do to ensure that you stay consistent with this is find someone that’s gonna do this daily challenge with you. This is really effective especially if you’re just starting out.

This is something that I got both parents to do together recently. So find a walking partner. By doing it with someone, you can hold each other accountable on the days when you just don’t feel like walking.

If you really want skin in the game, put money on it if you miss a day. That’ll get you moving.

At the end of the day, just remember that walking only plays a supporting role when it comes to your results.

You can’t just depend on it. It can’t be your main tool. It’s not a magic pill. 

80% of your body composition is still determined by your diet.

You can’t just go for a walk and expect to build muscle. It doesn’t work like that. You have to lift weights. You also can’t keep eating a crappy diet. 

As the saying goes, you can’t outrun a bad diet. Or for this scenario, you can’t out walk a bad diet.

Also, you want to make sure you’re making other supportive lifestyle choices like getting adequate and quality sleep. 

Make sure you’re managing your stress levels. By the way, walking is an unbelievably powerful way to manage stress. 

You want to make sure you’re doing some form of resistance training at least a couple of times per week to maintain and build muscle. And most importantly, you want to make sure you dial in your nutrition.

Again, it’s all about stacking one strategy after another. You always want to have a multifaceted approach to fat loss. Walking is simply one of those strategies.

If you combine all the aforementioned supportive lifestyle choices and get 10,000 steps every day, whether you’re a beginner or advanced, you’re going to transform your body into a lean walking machine. 

So, get out there.

As always, if this was helpful, share it with a friend who could benefit from it as well!

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