Walking Workouts To Lose Weight

Are you looking to lose weight without the need for high intensity training like hit, running or weight lifting? Whilst all these are good for weight loss, toning and keeping fit they’re not for everyone. You can lose weight by doing lower intensity exercises like walking workouts to lose weight, anything that burns calories will help. Don’t believe me? Check out my about me page, I lost weight this year (2020) and a lot of that was because I was walking more.

In this article I’ll be going through some different walking workouts to lose weight you can do yourself to help you on your weight loss journey. If you are interested in losing weight through strength training check this article out – How to lose belly fat with weights.

What makes you lose weight

If you’re looking to lose weight you need to know what makes you lose weight or gain weight in the first place.

When trying to lose weight you have to be in a calorie deficit, meaning you’re burning more calories per day than you’re eating. I talk about this in more detail in this article – Losing weight on a plant based diet. Have a read of that at some point because you need to know how weight loss happens and the reasons why you might not be loosing weight.

Diet

Whether it’s eating less, burning more calories or both you can lose weight if you want it hard enough. A lot of people struggle to lose weight and a lot of the time it’s because we underestimate how much we’re eating. It’s really easy to eat just a little too much, that pint at the pub or the Friday night take away. But do this too frequently and you’ll see the weight pile on, or at the very least you won’t lose any weight. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to have treats, just have them in moderation.

But the same can go for losing weight as well, small changes here and there can make a big difference. Swap your beer out for a gin & slimline tonic and that’s a saving of about 130 calories. Swap your Friday night take away for a do it yourself make at home job (so you can see what goes in it), and you could save 100’s of calories!

Benefits of walking

There are physical and mental benefits to walking regularly at a fast pace. The physical benefits of walking are:

• Strengthens your bones and muscles
• Improves balance and coordination

The benefits of walking aren’t just physical. Walking can do wonders for your mental health as well. The benefits of walking for mental health include:

• Increases energy and positive mood
• Reduce stress and anxiety
• Improves your mood
• Improves self-esteem

Walking to lose weight

Walking burns calories, end of. But how can you use it to lose weight? By making it more intense.

Now I know I said at the start of this article you don’t need to do high intensity training to lose weight. So if the thought of high intensity walking freaks you out don’t worry, you can start slow and work your way up to a higher intensity as you get fitter.

Increase the walking intensity

Where walking really becomes a good calorie burner is when you’re walking at a faster pace. More like a march than a stroll. It gets your heart pumping and can help you to lose weight (with the right diet too). When I walk my dog for an hour at a reasonably fast pace I burn about 260 calories according to my Fitbit. I would recommend some kind of fitness tracker, doesn’t have to be a Fitbit, just something to track your heart rate and steps.

Build up your walking workouts

Depending on your fitness level you might not be able to walk for an hour at a time, that’s fine. Just start with however long you can walk for and build up your walking workouts to lose weight from there. But walk at a fast pace. If you can just manage 10 minutes to start with, great. Do that 3 times a day and you’ve done 30 minutes. That’s still around 130 calories a day. Do that every day and that’s 910 calories a week burnt just from walking! Tie that in with watching what you’re eating and you’ll be loosing weight in no time at all.

Walking workouts to lose weight

There are 3 workout stages you can use to walk to lose weight. I’ve broken them down into starter, intermediate and advanced walker. They will all get your heart rate into the fat burning zone but as you move through the workouts your heart rate will be in the fat burning zone for longer.

Fat burning zone!

When walking to lose weight you want your heart rate to be about 70% of your maximum. To work this out first get your maximum heart rate, this is 220 – your age. So for me it’s 220 – 40 = 180. So my maximum heart rate is 180. 70% of this (180 x 0.70) is 126. So I’m aiming for my heart rate to be about 126 when I’m walking. The pace shouldn’t be so fast that you’re out of breath but you should feel like you’re working and not taking a light stroll through a park. The NHS website states a fast pace is about 3 miles an hour so that’s what you should be aiming for.

Starter walker

The starter workout is for those who don’t do any or very little walking at the moment. This workout will get you to the 10,000 steps minimum you should be aiming for every day. Most mobile phones have a health tracker to track your steps but a fitness tracker would be even better if you have one. A fitness tracker will track your heart rate as well so you’ll know when you’re in that fat burning zone!

Start with just 3 ten minute fast paced walks per day, so you’re doing 30 minutes of walking. If you do this along with your usual daily activities you should get to 10,000 steps per day. If you’re not quite hitting 10,000 increase your walks to 12 minutes so you’re totaling 36 minutes per day. You’ll be burning around 40-50 calories per 10 minutes of walking so 120-150 per day.

It might be hard walking fast for 10 minutes at the start but as you get fitter you’ll feel like you could go for longer. Pop some great songs on as you walk and you’ll be done in no time at all. When you can walk easily for 10 minutes at a time (which may take days or weeks) you should progress to three 15 minute walks per day. When this gets easy you’re ready for the next level.

Intermediate walker

Once you can walk at a fast pace for three lots of 15 minutes you’re ready for this level. This does take some time and dedication because you’re going to be walking more. You’re aiming for 15,000 steps per day. Sounds hard right? If you break it down it can be done! If you walk in the morning, at lunch and in the evening you’re all done.

Start off with three 20 minute fast paced walks per day. You’re walking for an hour a day now and you should be feeling the benefits physically and mentally. You’re also burning 240 – 300 calories per day so this is where you’ll start to see more of a difference if you’re eating right as well. If you’re not quite hitting 15,000 steps increase the walks to 22 minutes each.

Once you can easily walk for three lots of 20 minutes per day you’re ready to progress to two lots of 30 minute walks per day. You’re still walking for an hour but the two longer walks will help to build up your aerobic fitness more. This will get you fitter and make other activities like riding a bike easier. Once you can easily walk for two lots of 30 minutes per day you’re ready for the next level.

Advanced walker

Whilst you don’t need to progress to this level, if you want to burn even more calories and get even fitter advanced walker is where you want to be.

You’re already doing an hour of walking and around 15,000 steps per day. Now we’re aiming for 20,000 steps per day! I know it sounds hard but like the intermediate level it can be done, especially if you break it down.

Start by taking three 30 minute walks per day. You’ll be walking for an hour and a half and burning around 360 – 450 calories per day. This will make a massive difference to your weight loss if you’re eating the right diet too.

Once that feels easy you’re ready for two lots of 45 minute walks per day. Still an hour and a half but the longer walks will improve your aerobic fitness even more.

The final part of the advanced walker is progressing to walking for 1 hour twice a day. You’ll be walking for two hours in total at a fast pace burning around 480 – 600 calories per day. This will get you really fit and help you to lose those pounds.

Will walking to lose weight work?

Combined with a healthy diet of whole foods and cutting down on your alcohol, processed food and junk food intake you absolutely can lose weight by walking. Begin with starter walker and work your way up to advanced walker. Even if you just make it to intermediate walker you will still lose weight, you just might get so far with your weight loss then plateau, our bodies get used to the exercise we put it through, that’s why we have to up the intensity to continue to see results.

Higher intensity

If you’re struggling with time (2 hours walking a day on the advanced walker is a lot!), you could try jogging instead. It’ll take less time to burn calories. You’ll be fitter now from all the walking you’ve been doing so moving on to jogging is the next step.

Even just adding a jog into your walks will burn more calories, for example if you jog for 30 seconds every 2 minutes that’ll really get your heart pumping. If that’s too much just do what you can to start with and work your way up. You may be able to get to 30 seconds of running (faster than a jog but not a sprint) and then walk for 1 minute.

That’s it for this article. I hope you find it useful and it helps you to hit your fitness goals. Have you tried walking workouts to lose weight? Let me know how you’re getting on by commenting below.

Bye for now

Katie

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