As your fitness improves, you will be able to walk a longer distance and use more energy. Walking fast burns more kilojoules per hour than walking slowly, but this doesn't mean you have to push yourself until you're breathless. Instead, pace yourself so that you can still talk.
Surprisingly, walking slowly 2 miles per hour burns more calories than fast walking 3 to 4 miles per hour. Why? When you walk slowly, you lose the efficiency of already being in motion towards your next step. This makes your muscles work a little harder with each step.
Speed Matters When Walking for Fitness
If you're walking for your health, a pace of about 3 miles per hour (or about 120 steps per minute) is about right. That's a 20-minute mile. To walk for weight loss, you'll have to pick up the pace to 4 miles per hour (or 135 steps per minute), a 15-minute mile.
If you add 30 minutes of brisk walking to your daily routine, you could burn about 150 more calories a day. Of course, the more you walk and the quicker your pace, the more calories you'll burn.
Brisk walking is a more effective version of walking. Brisk walking is walking at a pace driven by your metabolic rate, to effectively achieve fitness and health. Anything around 100 steps a minute can be considered brisk walking as it varies slightly from person to person.
About walking
Just 30 minutes every day can increase cardiovascular fitness, strengthen bones, reduce excess body fat, and boost muscle power and endurance. It can also reduce your risk of developing conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and some cancers.
And most experts will agree that adding between 20 and 30 minutes of exercise to your daily routine is a good place to start. The best part about walking for about 20 minutes a day is that it's an attainable goal.
How much should I walk to lose 10 kg? 30 minutes a day of brisk walking or power walking 5 days a week can help you reduce up to 10 kgs.
If you plan to walk for 4 miles (or 6.4 km) a day, you will begin to lose weight almost immediately. But along with your exercise routine, you need to maintain a balanced and healthy diet so that you don't put on the calories you're working hard to burn.
Walking for 30 minutes at a brisk pace covers a distance of 2.0 to 2.5 km and burns about 125 calories (520 kiloJoules). This amount may not seem like much, but if you walked five days a week within one year you would burn over 32,000 calories which would burn off more than 5 kg of fat.
Key takeaways. Brisk walks can be an effective way to support weight loss. Consistency is important. Walking 5-7 days a week for 45-60 minutes at a moderate intensity is necessary for most people to burn enough calories to lose weight.
A fast walking pace or speed is:
7.5 minutes per kilometre (8 kilometres per hour)
A slower walk as you age has always been a warning sign of increasing frailty that could lead to falls and other disabilities, experts say. Emerging research in small groups of elderly subjects has also found that a slower gait from year to year may be an early sign of cognitive decline.
The study says that people who walk fast tend to be the type of people that are intense and easily get unhappy. These people often prioritize getting things done as their life's goal and tend to ignore their happiness, focusing on getting things that will never be done and have trouble controlling their emotions.
Talking a stroll is one of the allowed forms of exercise, and it turns out, even walking slowly can be remarkably beneficial. Walking slowly not only burns more calories per mile, but it may also save wear and tear on the joints of those who are obese.
Avoid this when you are cutting back your calories by simply using walking as your daily exercise. Aim for at least 10,000 to 12,000 steps each day which will support a one to two kg weight loss over the course of a week.
Walk to your destination: The next time you step out of your home to go the ATM, the local supermarket or even the park, walk the distance. Daily walking for 30 minutes can burn up to 150 calories in a day. So in a matter of just three days, you can lose 500gms of weight from your body!
10,000+ Daily Steps
However, aiming for a higher number is beneficial because walking not only helps in burning calories but is also responsible for the following benefits: Walking at least 30 minutes a day, five days a week can reduce your risk for coronary heart disease by about 19 percent. Walking eases joint pain.
What is 10000 Steps Equal To? “But,” continues Jamie, “if you walk briskly for 30 minutes and include enough activity throughout the day to reach the combined total of 10,000 steps, you're burning about 400 to 500 calories a day, which means you're losing one pound each week.”
Most people need a calorie deficit of around 500 calories per day to lose half a kilo per week. Thus, people aiming to lose weight should exercise for at least 150-200 minutes per week and walk 10,000 steps per day to achieve their weight loss goals.
"Since the human body is meant to move, one must walk at least 6K-10K steps per day, depending upon their fitness level," said Rachit Dua, a fitness expert. Can walking for an hour daily help you lose 2-3 kgs every month? Despite trying various diets and exercises, many of us struggle to lose weight.
Are multiple short walks as good as 1 long walk? In short – yes! Shorter walks are just as good as longer walks for fitness. In fact, it may even be more beneficial to work in short bursts of activity during your day.
The short answer is yes. “Walking is just as good as any other form of exercise,” says University Hospitals pediatric sports medicine specialist Laura Goldberg, MD. “The guidelines are 150 minutes of moderate activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity a week. It doesn't really matter how you get that.
After 3-4 days of walking: you will notice the “better fit” or more room in your clothes! After 7 days of walking: real changes are happening! You have used body fat as energy (fat burning!) Muscles feel more toned!