Is walking actually beneficial for weight loss?

I love walking. I’ve had a few years of issues with my mobility and am determined to build up my walking stamina again. There’s something about switching off from TV and social media, just listening to nature (or my mood-specific music) and getting moving.

Yep! It will contribute to your calorie deficit (as long as you don't eat back the calories you burn). It also makes your muscles stronger, and strong muscles burn more energy, so it helps in that way too.

You need to be walking fast enough to be a little out of breath though - a nice, brisk pace. Sadly a pleasant amble isn't nearly so effective!

Do it, OP!

If you enjoy it, you will feel better.

Walking, like other exercise, raises your endorphins and makes you feel better. Being out in the sunshine (even weak cloudy winter sun) raises your mood and increases Vit D.

All this - as well as whatever extra calories you burn - keeps you away from the fridge and 'doom munching'

IMO/ IME

I lost 18Kgs in lockdown by walk, walk, walking - and stopping snacking. Stopping snacking was so much easier through enjoying walking and just feeling better about myself and wanting to look after myself..

Absolutely. Walking is great for weight loss.
You can do it at any time.
You don't need equipment.
You don't need gym membership.
Its free!
Get out there and good luck with your weight loss.
X

Agreed, being short and middle-aged, I don't want to spend decades picking at what everyone else considers a calorie restricted diet in order to not put on weight. And the reality is there will be times like Christmas, holidays and special occasions that go over, and push having to lose weight again. 1000-1500 (BMR 1400) calories per day permanently? No thank you!

Much more fun to exercise and increase my dietary allowence by a few hundred a day by being active, walking around and doing other exercise. Plus all the other health benefits.

Walking is great functional exercise. Ideally for optimal health, not the only one, but it's beginner friendly, free, doesn't need more than a decent pair of shoes/ trainers. It's an easy way to burn a bit more energy and get the body working well while fitting it into life. It can often tip the balance from gaining weight to maintaining, or maintaining to losing.

@BogRollBOGOFmy relatives who lived into their 90s had padding but they all walked daily.

When one of my relatives began to struggle with issues that increasingly interrupted her daily walk to the village, everything began to decline quite rapidly. The decline of her physical strength, but also the loss of the daily social interractions and things like not buying the newspaper, reading it and doing the puzzles were part of a rapid cognitive decline in her last few years. She was going to decline due to a specific condition deteriorating anyway, but there was an abrupt gear change at that point.

Another relative had a "good" old age, despite having been overweight, a smoker, a drinker and a traditional diet that included a lot of foods reputed to cause cardiovascular disease. Getting out on foot daily to the shops and pub kept him moving until his final week.

Walking has been a common feature of of the people I know that have lived well into their 80s until other conditions took control. More so than diet.

Yup, my mother in case is a case in point. She never learned to drive and always lived close enough to shops to walk for daily shopping trips (bread, milk, fruit/veg etc) and by bus for weekly trips to the town centre shops/library, etc., where she'd often walk one way and also worked close enough to walk. Daily walking kept her fit and healthy, and she had very "shapely" legs and arms due to muscles etc. Not an inch of "flab" on her, no bingo wings nor even wrinkles. Even at 80, she looked better than some people half her age. Sadly, it was dementia that got her in the end - her body never let her down in any way. I suppose healthy eating also paid a part as she was of the generation of properly balanced meals, healthy options, lots of fresh fruit/veg/meats/fish etc and even shunned "convenience" foods in her old age - never ate from tins/packets!

@TheInternetIsNotAnalogue

It was noticeable that I had to start watch what I ate as soon as I started driving

Yes, same here but for me it was getting a job that I needed to drive to, i.e. in the next town over, whereas although I could drive, I could walk/cycle to my first job so barely ever drove to work. Weight piled on when I drove on my daily commute instead of walking/cycling. Decades later, I've got an office close to home, so I walk/cycle again and barely use the car - weight has been steadily coming off ever since. During all that time, my "poor" diet hasn't changed - I still eat crap food and binge, but it's walking to/from work that keeps the weight off and in fact has caused a steady fall in weight over the years.

During the two months we didn't have dogs (we had to have our third greyhound girl put to sleep in May 2019 but adopted again in the July), I noticed a big difference so yes, I would say brisk walking is hugely beneficial - both for fitness and mental health 👍

Lots of my older relatives have never done anything else but walk & it has kept them fit & trim.

I unfortunately had cataracts due to treatment for cancer. While waiting for a hospital date to get new cataracts, l could no longer drive, my eye sight was so bad. Therefore l had to walk to school to drop of my children. Walking four times a day, just under two miles for three months l dropped nearly three stone. People thought l was unwell again. So l would say yes, walking does help with weight loss. Good luck

Walking is good for you overall. If you add in a hill here and there you are building more muscle in your thighs and strengthening your calves - a major blood pump - and also your heart muscle. Muscle burns more calories...

People used to recommend increasing incidental exercise, dance in the house, hoover vigourously, and so on - but now the mantra of diet over exercise, and since some study or other came out the exercise doesn't help you lose weight belief is so strong it is all pooh-poohed. It always helped me.

I found out it very much depends on the walking! You should walk at a pace where you can almost not talk and definitely try to get your HR over 100. Ideally between 100-125.

Apparently me walking with a HR of 85-90 won't do much.

Yes walks 7 days a week (fit bit watch proof) as there are those who want to say we don’t exercise when suits them but for the majority of the year I’ve do over 7 days a week exercise.

Walking helped me lose 10 kgs over 2 years. I walked 2.5km in 30 mins in the morning and afternoon 6 days a week. I have now cut down to 1 walk a day just to maintain my weight. My diet remained the same (I love desserts) but I did give up soft drinks.

This is exactly the argument I would make to argue the opposite! I always found it far harder to cut the equivalent of a whole meal from my day, than to run for an hour.

If you eat loads of crap, then maybe it is easy to cut 500 calories. But if you eat pretty well, but are overweight because you sit at a desk 9 hours per day, and have gained a few pounds per year over a decade or two - much easier to up the exercise, in my opinion.

School run & dog walk are leisurely walks .
If you want to lose weight , a brisk 40 minute walk 5 days a week, & obviously eating correctly, you genuinely won’t know yourself in 3 months .

Sorry OP, no it’s not going to happen. BUT although it won’t really help with weight loss the benefits of walking are huge when you think about what it will contribute to overall wellbeing. I could only get to my desired weight with Mounjaro - having tried everything else. But I now enjoy my dog walking much more because I don’t have the aches and pains associated with being overweight and lumbering around like a tub of lard!!

We’ve reached the age bracket of reading about maintaining good health, strength, balance and movement and walking is highly recommended for all of the above.

my DM was confined to a wheelchair in her later years and I can tell you she didn’t enjoy it at all, esp being lifted up and out of the chair because she no longer had the strength in her legs to carry herself.

she didn’t suffer any accident, just let herself go…

I find weight loss more consistent when I walk 10000 ish steps a day.

It will of course help generally but it’s been shown to have no real excess benefit over 7000 steps per day.

If you are able to, high intensity interval workouts are more effective and time efficient for weight loss (80% still diet versus exercise though).

During lockdowns I walked briskly every single day for about 45 minutes and lost the best part of a stone.

Take a look at Red Russ Bus, an american who came to live in the UK and without trying lost a lot of weight. He puts it down to better food in the UK and all the walking he happened to do due to the UK's walking culture. Only some of his videos refer to this but you will find them there including a before and after photo.

Some years ago I lost a stone by walking, but I was doing 20,000 steps a day. I run now as its more efficient.