Is walking actually beneficial for weight loss?

Yes. But fundamentally it’s about calories as well.

if I walk up hills all day I tend to eat less than I burn
if I walk up hills all day for a week I lose weight
10,000 steps round town? Nothing

Walking was the main way I used to keep fit. You do need to break a bit of a sweat though!
Then slowly make adjustments to your food/diet to really improve your health!

There’s a quote that I like about weight loss:-

“Diet is Batman and exercise is Robin. Diet does 95 percent of the work and deserves all the attention.”

Exercise is still healthy and important — just not equally important. It has many benefits, but weight loss is not among them.

Moving more helps with digestion at the very least, so is definitely a good thing.

@ygrittesnow5 absolutely 100% it helps.

My dad does a brisk walk every day. He lost a LOT of weight from walking and found it easy to add to his routine. His weight has now plateaued at a sensible weight and he has kept the walking up for years now! He can't do strenuous exercise due to heart problems.

Also, try and walk faster for the duration of the walk as your speed has big impact on the energy you burn! e.g. if you double your speed you more than double the energy you burn.

If you mean the research Exercise won’t help you lose much fat. Changing this will | BBC Science Focus Magazine by Herman Pontzer, I'd say he's in a narrow field researcher of hunter-gatherer and subsistence farmers, which is an atypical comparator cohort.

Either he, or the article writer, has tied themselves in knots, while contradicting themselves around the basic concepts of BMR and activity energy expenditure (TDEE) and provide no workings to back up the findings.

"But a major new study challenges that long-standing belief. Collating data on more than 4,200 people across 34 different countries, researchers found that people who exercise more don’t burn more calories than those who sit around all day.

In fact, the research found that, matched pound-for-pound, a hunter-gatherer from Tanzania’s Hadza community burns about the same number of calories each day as a typical US office worker – even though the Hadza are more active in a single day than most Americans are in an entire week".

The article claims the similarities are due to adaptation to reach homeostasis (nope) and the article ascribes the majority of calorie burn to BMR - this last part is correct. Basal Metabolic rate is largely mass dependent, with an age factor, or if you're splitting hairs, a more accurate BMR is based on lean mass

The larger people (with a higher BMR) are moving less, but eat the same as the smaller people (with a lower BMR), moving more

What's the key thing missing?

The explanatory power of the differing activity levels between the two groups as cause for similar calorific demands (which I am sceptical of).

If the office workers consistently ate at/around BMR, they would people feel bit more sluggish, but no noticeable weight loss and because the activity factor is low and their body would go into scavenger mode. If they ate at BMR - 500 cals for extended periods, bad things would start to happen, namely muscle wasting and hormonal disruption.

If the Hadza ate at their BMR and not as the report claims - the same calories as the office worker, but still walked however many miles per day, occasionally sprinted after their tea, this higher activity factor beyond their BMR (aka exercise) would result in a net deficit on TDEE and therefore weight loss.

The TDEE and associated activity levels as drivers of successful weight loss is reiterated here, which contains numbers to back up their conclusion

"The high levels of PAEE and TDEE observed in individuals maintaining a substantial weight loss (−26.2±9.8 kg maintained for 9.0±10.2 years) suggest that this group relies on high levels of energy expended in physical activity to remain in energy balance (and avoid weight regain) at a reduced body weight."

The other factor is that most people over-estimate how many cals a workout burns and I don't count sitting on machines doing leg raises or lat pull downs as exercise, although muscles will burn more calories at rest than fat.

I found that I had to keep up a decent speed for a walk. That was difficult, especially if accompanied by a slower person. Additionally, where I live the walks are rarely smooth.

A few years back I bought a treadmill which allows me to be very regulated about the exercise. It’s aerobic exercise which is always good for you.

No good for the dog though…

I find walking excellent for weight loss when combined with caffeine. It's not the walking itself, I don't think, although that is helpful, it's a combination of (i) the time it takes, which is time spent not eating, and (ii) the dopamine hit I get from being outside and exercising. I try to go for a 30 minute walk every morning before getting the kids ready for school, and then build as much walking as I can into my day and into weekends (time spent out of the house walking or exercising is time not spent in the house snacking).

The caffeine comes in to suppress hunger later when I'm sat at my computer working (I mostly wfh). I have a cup of coffee as soon as I sit down to start working as that's when boredom kicks in and I need an energy boost. Then an early high protein lunch, usually something like scrambled eggs on toast and sliced apple. Then more coffee. I usually try to fit a couple more 15 minute walks into my work day, and then walk to collect the kids from after school club. I do usually have a treat at some point during the day, a brownie or piece of cake or something, again with more coffee. Then usual family dinner.

If it helps to push you into a calorie deficit, then yes, it's beneficial for weight loss.

If you're still eating more calories than you're expending, including your walks, then it won't help you lose weight - but will be fairly good for improving cardiovascular fitness if you walk at a decent pace, and if you ever wanted to take up running, it's easier if, when you start, you're already easily capable of a brisk 5K walk.

You need to work out your TDEE - there are loads of calculators online - and select either light or moderate exercise (if walking is your only exercise, I'd be inclined to select 'light' when you enter your height, weight and age. That will tell you how many calories you burn, roughly, per day. If you want to lose weight, you will need to consume less than that most days. It really is that simple. But it does mean being incredibly diligent about logging everything you eat, weighing and measuring quantities etc, including everything like teas and coffees and the splash of oil in your stir-fry and the bites you nibble while you're cooking and the amount of butter you spread on your bread etc.

one of the best forms of exercise there is. Well done on your steps. But weight loss is 80 to 90% diet. You’re only gonna exercise yourself thin if you’re a pro athlete.

Depends how you walk. You've got to put in in.

I didn't say exercise doesn't burn calories. But it burns a relatively small number overall unless someone is training as their main job.
Most of our expenditure is maintaining normal bodily functions, thermal effects of food and incidental daily movement. If you exercised every day of the week, you'll be lucky to raise your expenditure by 5% which is only about 100-150kcal for most people. Not even 1lb loss per week.

Agree with pace and distance making the difference. My weight loss was slow on just diet and swimming, then I started power-walking and what a difference! It just seemed to drop off! I've done 12,000 steps today, about 7km, and burned 1,500 calories. I do this about twice a week to maintain the weight loss and so far it's stayed off. Would definitely recommend.

Walking plus very healthy diet is brilliant for weight loss. But not changing diet won’t do anything apart from keep you moving.

Walking is good for you, weight loss will be very dependent on why you eat your be honest though

How fast do you walk

A weighted vest can do the same (if you're wanting that).

I used to run distances and had to stop for a while due to an injury. When I was rehabbing, I started walking with a weighted vest. I liked it so much, I run less now and do more of that.

I just came back from 2 weeks at Disney Orlando. I ate out at 10 different restaurants, ate icecream, drank loads of soda and sweets etc. I also walked on average 20,000 steps a day.
I lost 1lb! If you can maintain a good enough diet it will help.

Walking, especially after meals, will improve your metabolic health which will help your body composition even if the scales don’t move. I find it really improves my mental health too. Do it!!
I dropped 3 dress sizes last year by walking daily and eating mainly whole foods.

It'll increase your NEAT and thus your TDEE so will help, yes. Plus, if you're walking briskly enough, might have your HR somewhere where it's counting as Cardiovascular exercise- I used to be able to manage that when I had DS in a back carrier as a toddler, but nowhere near these days since he's 9 and definitely not being carried

No but it is very good for your overall health. To lose weight you have to change your diet - reduce foods that give you a blood sugar high (sweet stuff and carbs) and ensure you are in calorie deficit.

The calories you burn with walking is fairly minimal and your body simply reduces the amount of other stuff instead like producing certain cells. This apparently lowers your cancer risk. (I read about this in Giulia Enders book ‘Organ Speak’ - highly recommended).

It definitely helps maintain, when I had an active job I could eat whatever I wanted & put weight on when I stopped.

It’s perfect but only if a person has their nutrition in check. For example, waking 3 miles burns roughly 300 calories but if someone then eats a couple of slices of pepperoni pizza then that’s 600 calories. The walk is completely undone and then some.

So I would view the walking as a nice compliment but nutrition has to be the foundation.

I find walking (and running when I was able to run) helped as it suppressed my appetite and increased my thirst!