It is essential to exercise regularly if you want to keep fit and healthy.
This is because physical fitness can lower your chance of acquiring health disorders such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer (1, 2, 3).
Exercise, in addition to helping you live a longer and healthier life, can also help you control your weight (4).
Fortunately, walking is a terrific type of physical activity that is free, low risk, and accessible to most people (5).
Walking is not only good for you; it is also one of the simplest forms of exercise to incorporate into your daily routine.
This article discusses how increasing your walking frequency can help you lose weight and belly fat.
Walking burns calories
All of the intricate chemical interactions that allow you to move breathe, think, and operate require energy (in the form of calories).
However, daily calorie requirements differ from person to person and are influenced by factors such as age, height, weight, gender, heredity, and activity level.
It is common knowledge that to lose weight, you must burn more calories than you ingest (6).
Furthermore, physically active people burn more calories than sedentary people (7, 8).
However, contemporary living and working situations may require you to spend a significant portion of your day sitting, mainly if you work in an office.
Sedentism, however, can not only lead to weight gain but can also raise your risk of health problems (9).
Increasing physical activity by walking more frequently will help you burn more calories and lower these hazards (10).
Depending on your gender and weight, walking a mile (1.6 km) burns about 100 calories (11).
One research examined how many calories persons with ordinary fitness levels expended after walking at a fast speed of 3.2 miles (5 kilometers) per hour or jogging at 6 miles per hour for around a mile. According to the findings, those who walked at a fast speed burned an average of 90 calories each mile (12).
Furthermore, while running burnt much more calories, it only burned around 23 more calories per mile on average, implying that both kinds of exercise significantly contributed to the number of calories burned.
Try walking on routes with hills or moderate inclines to boost the intensity of your stroll and burn even more calories (13).
It helps preserve lean muscle
People frequently lose muscle and body fat when they limit calories and lose weight.
This can be detrimental because muscle burns more calories than fat. This means having more strength allows you to burn more calories throughout the day.
Walking, for example, can help counteract this effect by preserving lean muscle mass as you lose weight.
Preserving lean muscle reduces the dip in metabolic rate that sometimes happens with weight loss, making it simpler to sustain your results (14, 15, 16).
Furthermore, regular exercise can help minimize age-related muscle loss, allowing you to maintain greater muscular strength and function later in your years (17).
Walking reduces belly fat
Obesity in the midriff has been related to an increased risk of illnesses such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease (18).
Males with a waist circumference of 40 inches (102 cm) and women with a waist circumference of 35 inches (88 cm) are regarded to have abdominal obesity, a health concern.
Regular aerobic activity, such as walking, is one of the most efficient strategies for losing belly fat (19, 20).
In one little research, obese women who walked for 50-70 minutes three times a week for 12 weeks lowered their waist circumference and body fat. Both the fat immediately beneath the skin (subcutaneous) and the fat buried within your abdominal cavity (visceral) were dramatically decreased in the workout group when compared to the control group (21).
Another study discovered that persons on a calorie-controlled diet who walked for an hour five times per week for 12 weeks lost inches off their waistlines and more body fat than those who only followed the diet (22).
It improves your mood
Exercise has been shown to improve your mood.
Physical activity has been proved to boost your mood and reduce symptoms of stress, melancholy, and worry (23, 24).
It accomplishes this by increasing your brain’s sensitivity to serotonin and norepinephrine hormones. These chemicals alleviate sadness and promote the release of endorphins, which make you joyful (25).
This is a significant benefit in and of itself. However, feeling a boost in the mood when walking consistently may make the practice simpler to maintain.
Furthermore, several studies have revealed that if you love physical activity, you are more likely to continue doing it (26, 27, 28).
People prefer to exercise less if they do not enjoy it, which might be because the activity is too physically demanding (29).
Walking is an attractive choice because it is a moderate-intensity workout. That is more likely to inspire you to walk more than to give up.
Walking can help you keep weight off
Many people who lose weight get it all back (29).
On the other hand, regular exercise is essential for maintaining weight loss (30).
Regular exercise, like walking, helps you burn more energy throughout the day, but it also enables you to create more lean muscle, which allows you to burn more calories even while you are at rest.
Furthermore, frequent moderate-intensity exercise, such as walking, might boost your mood, increasing your likelihood of staying active in the long run.
According to one study, you should walk at least 150 minutes weekly to maintain a steady weight (31).
However, if you’ve lost a significant amount of weight, you may need to exercise for more than 200 minutes each week to avoid regaining it (33, 34).
According to research, persons who exercise the most are generally the most effective at sustaining their weight loss, whereas people who exercise the least are more likely to regain weight (35)
Incorporating more walking into your routine will help boost your exercise and contribute to your daily activity objectives.
How to incorporate more walking into your lifestyle
Aside from weight reduction, being more physically active provides a slew of other advantages, including:
- enhanced fitness and mood
- a lower chance of sickness
- a greater chance of having a longer, healthier life
As a result, it is advised that adults engage in at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise every week.
In terms of walking, that translates to 2.5 hours a week (at least 10 minutes at a time) at a brisk pace. Exercising more than this gives additional health advantages (including weight loss) and lowers your risk of illness even further.
There are several strategies to boost your walking and reach this goal.
Here are some suggestions:
- To inspire yourself to exercise more, use a fitness tracker and monitor your steps (36).
- Make it a habit to go for a little stroll during your lunch break and after supper.
- Invite a friend to accompany you for an evening walk.
- Take a walk with your family and children.
- Every day, walk your dog or join a friend’s dog walk.
- Instead of meeting at your desk, take a stroll with a coworker.
- Carry out errands such as walking the kids to school or grocery shopping.
- Take a walk to work. If it’s too far, park farther away or get off the bus a few stations earlier and walk the rest of the way.
- To keep your walks interesting, choose different and challenging routes.
- Participate in a walking club.
Every little bit helps, so start small and progressively increase the amount of time you walk each day.
The bottom line
Walking is a simple, low-intensity activity to add to your everyday routine.
Simply walking more frequently will help you lose weight and abdominal fat while providing other fantastic health advantages such as a lower risk of illness and a better mood.
In reality, walking one-mile burns around 100 calories.
If you want to improve your weight management, combining increased physical activity with a nutrient-rich, balanced diet gives you the highest chance of success.
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