Weight loss from just walking 5 miles a day?

[1cupcke]

Has anyone lost a significant amount of weight just walking their 5 miles a day and watching what they eat?  I am worried that 5 miles is not enough to really get the weight off.

[bikerhiker]

You can achieve weight loss from just walking 5 miles a day, but you need to understand a few things first.  To loose weight, you need to create a calorie deficit over a prolonged period of time to loose weight.  While walking by itself can not create a large calorie deficit like other cardio and weight training sports, it does promote a higher metabolism rather than you sitting on the couch all day.  Second, you need to have a good balanced diet and what sources of food provide what calories.  In the macronutrient sense, food provide us with carbohydrates, protein and fat.  1 gram of carbohydrate supplies the body with 4 calories, 1 gram of protein supplies the body with 4 calories and 1 gram of fat supplies the body with 9 calories.  So it is conceivable that you would target your intake by limiting yourself from consuming too much refined sugar from sugary drinks, donuts, sweets etc as that would create an insulin resistant in your body over prolonged periods of time.  When we consume carbohydrates, most of it will eventually be turned into sugar and be absorbed into the blood stream.  So a diet of fresh fruits, nuts, bran are fibre which helps you with elimination of bowel movement as well as with starches from vegetables, rice and pasta provide the body with the energy that it needs.

Too much people are focused on CICO (Calorie In Calorie Out), but they fail to realize that fat loss is not only CICO, but also involves mental health issues.  Personally, I had lost 8lbs over a period of several long months from 158lbs to 150lbs through walking and eating a good healthy balanced diet.  Working in a nursing profession, I learned about diet and nutrition and that helped me loose weight.  Incidentally, in my younger years, my best weight was 145lbs, so it isn't too far from 150lbs. 

I have a theory, my personal theory why I was able to loose weight so quickly now than in the past. 

It was my personal mental health issues, and my body serves as a physical feedback system to what I need to focus on healing.  I was suffering from bout of depression, performance anxieties and anger issues that I couldn't let go.  I was working in the hi-tech industry for close to 3 decades.  Before I began working, I was pretty happy, fit and carry a healthy weight of 145lbs based on my body composition, age and sex.  Then when I started working and began to become more successful in my career, I was taking in more stress as I was expected to as I'm paid handsomely to take care of other people's problems and was part of the so called achieving the American dream.  Then my weight gained as though it was me wanting to create a large body, a man cave, so I can crawl into and hide in peace from the stress.  I also began to become more addicted to more sugary products (Pepsi) and ice cream as though I need them to lower my stress level by getting high temporarily.  My weight rose from 140lbs to 175lbs.  I was a mess, got sick often and always seeking the next fix.  This was how I was introduced to extreme sports like marathons, ultramarathons, Ironman, South Beach diet and Atkins diet and core circuit weight training.  These helped me reduce my weight back to 145lbs, but I had to do a lot, create a lot of calorie deficit in order to loose weight and the diet restriction made me a virtual prisoner.  I was happy that I lost weight, but I wasn't happy still mentally with myself.  So while I lost weight, and while the diet is sound, mentally I wasn't well and I kept wanting to eat more sugar, more fat so it was always a tug of war between my mind and doing sports and weight training to maintain my ideal weight.  Finally, after 2 decades of doing extreme sports, the body started to take the toll and then I stopped.  My weight regained back to 160lbs and it had stayed there for 8 years until about 2 years ago, where I left my six figure salary career, my fake identity and lifestyle and embraced my dream to be a caregiver.  While it didn't pay much than my corporate job, I felt I was free.  I didn't need my man cave (my obese body) anymore and mentally, I started to stay away from sugary stuff as though I don't need those addictive substances anymore.  Then I proceeded with a long term weight loss program.  Due to the injuries I had sustained from extreme ultramarathon running, I could only walk now with some swimming.  Surprisingly, my body started to respond very quickly.  First my waist line started to shrink dramatically and I became more alert and well.  I also started to crave more lean meat and protein unsaturated fat like fish and stayed away from sugary drinks.  I do give myself some treats, but it's not like I'm a prisoner waiting for the monthly treats.  It was a treat to remember what an ice cream or Pepsi still taste like.  

I believe you can loose weight by walking and doing mild exercises, BUT it has to start with the mind first.  The mind creates all sort of illnesses and addictions.  You need to first tackle your mental health and focus on the cause of the obesity.  Heal from that and then proceed with a weight loss program and good diet plan to loss those weight permanently. 

[lavabelle]

@bikerhiker Well said, and from experience, this is also true for me personally. Finding peace is a huge part of keeping a healthy body. 

[MVibe]

Calorie counting, & eating healthy calories at a deficit in itself should result in weight loss. If walking 5 miles a day is something you haven't been doing, then you are increasing your activity level which will also help. I was about 2 stone over weight at the start of the year and pretty much did those things almost exclusively.

I'm not at the bodyfat percentage I want to be at yet though and my body has stayed where it is with these things alone ( currently around 19% bodyfat - was at 27% ) But to me, that's quite a big jump from where I was without going mental down a gym or anything. You'll probably get so far and then stop, at which point you may find you have to increase the intensity of the activity you're doing to keep going further but if you're eating right as well, you'll feel more energized for it anyways. For me & my body at least, it gets a bit tougher the nearer you are to your goal weight / bodyfat. I'm going to be content at around 15% bodyfat but going from 19% to 15% is proving to be a lot tougher than going from 27% to 19%. But yeah, the initial weight loss was just a combination of a healthy calorific deficit and brisk walking. I'd like to add that I didn't just slug around at a snails pace though, I was walking a lot quicker than usual, deliberately using stairs instead of lifts and generally making it harder than it would ordinarily be.

[Dominique]

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@MVibe wrote:

For me & my body at least, it gets a bit tougher the nearer you are to your goal weight / bodyfat. I'm going to be content at around 15% bodyfat but going from 19% to 15% is proving to be a lot tougher than going from 27% to 19%.

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That has also been my experience. I think it’s especially true the older you get (I’m 57). You’ll probably find you’ll need to further lower your weight in order to get closer to 15%. In my case, I initially thought my "ideal" weight range was 65-70 kg (BMI 21.5-23.1), but now it’s more 60-65 kg (BMI 19.8-21.5).

This is me today at 60.0 kg (been dieting for 7 weeks), at 14.2% BF according to my Aria scale:

 

The lowest I’ve been so far is 12.9% (last December). I’m not sure I’ll beat that during the next 5 weeks of this cutting phase.

[Dominique]

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@bikerhiker wrote:

walking by itself can not create a large calorie deficit like other cardio and weight training sports 

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I would disagree with that. Let’s have a look at my activity on Tuesday:

The first stack of yellow bars in the morning was my weight training session. Granted, it was shorter and less intense than usual, since this is the deload week of my program. However, even when my sessions are at their longest and most intense, they’re seldom more than 75-80 minutes and it’s usually a mix of yellow and green bars (because of rest periods between sets). I therefore seldom burn more than 400-450 calories in a weight training session.

The second and third stacks (mostly green bars) are two walks, a longer one (10.5 km) before lunch and a slightly shorter one (9.1 km) after lunch:

Neither was particular intense (hence average HR around 100), but they had me burn 739 and 781 calories, respectively. That’s 1520 calories in total! No way I could burn that lifting weights or doing any kind of higher intensity cardio. And the good thing about walking is it requires no recovery (once you’ve developed basic fitness): I could repeat this everyday if I wanted.

I’ll concede burning calories via walking is time-consuming. Not a problem for me, since I’ve got plenty of time on my hands. And my job has me mostly sitting in front of a computer, so any time spent on the move in a win for me.

I don’t usually walk that much, but I’m currently in weight loss mode and all this walking has had me losing 4.5 kg (10 lbs) so far in 8 weeks (while still eating a decent amount of food), from an already lean level:

[bikerhiker]

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@Dominique wrote:

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@bikerhiker wrote:

walking by itself can not create a large calorie deficit like other cardio and weight training sports 

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I would disagree with that. Let’s have a look at my activity on Tuesday:

The first stack of yellow bars in the morning was my weight training session. Granted, it was shorter and less intense than usual, since this is the deload week of my program. However, even when my sessions are at their longest and most intense, they’re seldom more than 75-80 minutes and it’s usually a mix of yellow and green bars (because of rest periods between sets). I therefore seldom burn more than 400-450 calories in a weight training session.

The second and third stacks (mostly green bars) are two walks, a longer one (10.5 km) before lunch and a slightly shorter one (9.1 km) after lunch:

Neither was particular intense (hence average HR around 100), but they had me burn 739 and 781 calories, respectively. That’s 1520 calories in total! No way I could burn that lifting weights or doing any kind of higher intensity cardio. And the good thing about walking is it requires no recovery (once you’ve developed basic fitness): I could repeat this everyday if I wanted.

I’ll concede burning calories via walking is time-consuming. Not a problem for me, since I’ve got plenty of time on my hands. And my job has me mostly sitting in front of a computer, so any time spent on the move in a win for me.

I don’t usually walk that much, but I’m currently in weight loss mode and all this walking has had me losing 4.5 kg (10 lbs) so far in 8 weeks (while still eating a decent amount of food), from an already lean level:

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When you burn calories during any exercise routine, you are burning both fat and carbohydrates.  Calories itself does not show you those proportions.  What will show you the proportions is your heart rate zone, exercise within that zone for 60min to 90min continuous sustained, your resting heart rate and your sleep patterns.  Those are better indicators of health and your body's ability to burn fat efficiently.  Meaning even at rest, your muscles will continue to burn more proportion of fat.

We have 5 heart rate zones, Zone 1 being recovery zone, Zone 2 being Fat burn zone, Zone 3 aerobic and all the way to 5 being anaerobic (meaning lacking of oxygen).  The higher proportion of fat being burned during an exercise routine is at Zone 2, the fat burn zone.  Incidentally, this is actually a Zone where long distance elite runners, triathletes and ultra-endurance runners like the Kenyans and Ethiopians or ultra-marathoners train to build their running base, reducing their weight to "race weight" and build cardiovascular efficiency, therefore allowing their body to biased in using fat more and converting it into energy during an endurance event.  This is because, 1 gram of fat supplies the body with 9 calories, whereas 1 gram of carbohydrate or protein supply the body with only 4 calories.  So while you may burn 500-700 calories in an exercise routine; most of those are carbohydrate and very little fat!

The western world had just recently revamped their endurance training protocol to include long slow runs for elite runners, due to the success of the Kenyans and Ethiopians who dominate the distance running circuit.  I was coaching runners for a long while; accomplished 10k runner, marathon and ultra-distance walking and running and we are now teaching long SLOW run or long BRISK walk in the attempt to emulate the success of the Kenyans.  When I was re-trained to run SLOW, I kept stumbling all the time; whereas the elite Olympic runners didn't.  Of course when the elite runners did change and most of us, like myself, our performances improve because now we had trained the body to burn fat efficiently, thus extending our performance without hitting the wall.  If you look at all endurance runners and race walkers (walking briskly), you always see them as slim and fit.  Rarely you see them with hanging fat around their waist and belly.

Most people exercise in the higher intensity range; which was the old school method of training which is --  No pain, no gain.  This higher intensity range is helpful to improve your overall fitness, which allows you to have a lower resting heart rate, better sleep patterns which promotes the production of Melatonin preferably during REM sleep between 1AM to 2AM.  This production of Melatonin is necessary to keep cancer cells at bay, thus reducing your chances of having cancer.  So higher intensity range isn't bad; but to truly loose weight, you need to do the LONG SLOW CARDIO @ Zone 2 HR to truly burn more proportion of fat in your body as calories.

The only routine that you can do this is a long walk or a long slow shuffle run/jog which are not high intensity.  I use an Apple Watch with a program called Zones In Training where it records and monitors where my heart rate zone is during the walk routine and keep beeping and vibrating if I'm in Zone 1 or Zone 3.  And you have to do this continuously for 60min to 90min somewhat daily.  It is a slow process and weight loss relying only on walks will burn fat, but slowly.  However, this is a base building routine, so that's why it is slow.  You only see results in years; not in weeks and months.  When I was competing in marathons, I actually took 1 year off to retrain my base like the Kenyans.  But when I came back a year later and started racing again, my results were amazing fitness wise.  I was less fatigued and slimmer.

We are living in a society of expecting INSTANT RESULTS in weeks and months.  Elite runners train their base for a year and then when they want to compete, adopt a more higher intensity workout because they already has a base endurance.

Now not having to know your HR zones, but my Zone 2 HR starts right around 107bpm to 125bpm or so.  Anything lower than 100bpm for me is Zone 1, which is my recovery zone and anything higher than 125bpm is Zone 3. 

[MVibe]

@bikerhikerThere's a lot of hills where I live and I make an effort to take those routes, also, I walk deliberately fast, can get out of breath & sweat. It's hard to define 'walking' without some kind of context. I think whoever it is walking would know whether they are making a physical effort of not. Big difference from just plodding along nonchanantly at a snails pace. I lost 2 stone just by walking and cutting sugar pretty much. But can only soeak for myself. I had to build up some fitness level, it would have been too hard for me to just go straight into heavy gym sessions or something. Even the hard walking really affected my feet for a while.

@DominiqueRegarding bodyfat, I seem to be clinging on to the last bit of fat around my belly button area but I am getting lighter weight wise. I don't want to shrink too much and still carry what fat I want to lose. Did you stumble into this yourself and if so, what did you do? Cheers.

[Dominique]

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@Dominique Regarding bodyfat, I seem to be clinging on to the last bit of fat around my belly button area but I am getting lighter weight wise. I don't want to shrink too much and still carry what fat I want to lose. Did you stumble into this yourself and if so, what did you do? Cheers.

Yes, it’s pretty common for men to store their "stubborn fat" precisely in that area, and I’m no exception. I cannot suggest any special trick, it’s just a question of lowering your overall body fat %. As a rule of thumb, my waist shrinks by 1 cm for every kg lost, so some fat does disappear there. I’m now about 2 kg away from my weight goal for this cutting phase, so I expect to see further shrinking of 2 cm. Right now the main problem is not so much the fat, but the loose skin in that area (and that area only). I plan to maintain my lower weight for a couple of months before regaining, in the hope I’ll establish a new, lower settling point for BF and see some tightening of the skin.

[bikerhiker]

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@MVibe wrote:

@bikerhikerThere's a lot of hills where I live and I make an effort to take those routes, also, I walk deliberately fast, can get out of breath & sweat. It's hard to define 'walking' without some kind of context. I think whoever it is walking would know whether they are making a physical effort of not. Big difference from just plodding along nonchanantly at a snails pace. I lost 2 stone just by walking and cutting sugar pretty much. But can only soeak for myself. I had to build up some fitness level, it would have been too hard for me to just go straight into heavy gym sessions or something. Even the hard walking really affected my feet for a while.

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The key to walking and loosing weight is not the strain of your workout, but rather the quality of your workout.  In fact, you should be able to maintain a reasonable conversation with your partner while brisk walking.  If you are running out of breath, that is not Zone 2, but in Zone 4 or 5 which is mainly anaerobic (lack of air).  I had trained a lot of walkers in the past and most of the time, they are in Zone 3 because they were taught that high intensity workout will burn more fat.  This is not the total truth, but it's still being sold an idea even today.

It's true that perceived effort of walking is different from individual to individual, which is why training with a heart rate monitor is important.  To tell you that you are above or below the fat burn effort.  Also, one should base train on flat ground to get the mileage and to get your body to burn fat more efficiently.  If you live in hilly areas like I am here, then slow down the pace to lower HR so you can maintain @ Zone 2 and then you hit flat ground again, pick up the pace again to get a continuous total workout.

Once base training has been accomplished, is when you then train your body with high intensity workouts, muscle and core strength training.  Why?  Because by now, your body is so good and efficient at burning fat that even @ high intensity workouts, the body can convert fat more efficiently because your fitness level has risen.

When I train the walkers, I could walk briskly and yet maintain a conversation, where the beginner walkers were mostly huffing and puffing.  That's why creating a base is so important.

A house with a poor foundation will never be able to support the heavy demands of weight compared to a house with a solid foundation.

Some people plateaued their weight loss because of poor training, not diet.  Instead, they focused on training to restrict more calories, thus compromising on the harder workouts because they had no base to begin with.  I've been doing fitness regime for about 40 years and I've seen pretty much all common issues with weight loss. 

[Dominique]

@bikerhiker wrote:

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So while you may burn 500-700 calories in an exercise routine; most of those are carbohydrate and very little fat! . 

Fat loss is determined by overall energy balance, regardless of what HR zones you exercise in, or even whether you exercise at all. I’m not an endurance athlete, nor am I training for an endurance event. This is my current cardio fitness score according to Fitbit:

 

It’s good enough for my purposes. Last time I performed Cooper’s test, I ran 2700 meters (in 12 minutes), not too bad for a guy in his fifties. My blood pressure is ideal, blood panel is spotless, I’ve never taken any medication for chronic diseases in my entire life. 

You seem to imply that I’m expecting instant results. Nothing could be further away from the truth. I’ve been in this game (Fitbit) for 5+ years and I’ve racked up quite a few steps:

 

That’s about 18k per day in average, btw. I have long term goals, as well as shorter term ones. I don’t see how having short term goals equals expecting instant results.

We have to find out for works for us and for our goals. You may have goals that are different from mine, that’s fine.

[bikerhiker]

Fat loss is actually determined by one's individual behaviour and experiences more so than one's energy balance.  Though that too is important.  If fat loss in one's energy balance, then there would not be a weight plateau as you could easily weight loss to any ideal healthy weight.  But of course, that is not exactly what some people experienced.  So it can not be a universal truth either. 

https://www.ucsfhealth.org/education/behavior_modification_ideas_for_weight_management/

So what is this behavioural management and modification?  As Albert Einstein said -- Insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results.

As the title said -- Weight loss from just walking 5 miles/day can be done, but it can not be done when other approaches are condemned and rejected..  How do anyone expect "change" if someone is insisting in doing the same things over and over again and expect different results? 

I have found that, through decades of observation on myself and my clients, that an individual with an open mind and the willingness to try new concepts and ideas away from the current accepted thoughts on fat loss are more successful in loosing weight and keeping it that way.

[GershonSurge]

@bikerhiker,

I only know of three people in the Fitbit forums who maintain their weight close to the center of the normal range, who show their data in their profile and are generally healthy. They are myself, @Dominique, and @Baltoscott. We all started getting healthy at the same time. At 65, I'm the old man in the group.

My way of eating is considerably different. I eat a whole food plant-based diet. (This is for information. I'm not trying to start a diet war.)

• No animal products
• No oils like olive oil, etc.
• No refined foods
• Eat all foods in as close to their natural state as possible

From what I can determine from their posts, the main difference in our diets is I substitute starches in place of animal products (my favorites are rice, beans, and oatmeal).

We all eat fresh cruciferous and green leafy vegetables for nutrients. We eat very few things with a nutrition label or a list of ingredients.

None of us are trying to become Kenyan marathoners. 🙂

Only @Baltoscott counts calories. I do occasionally for a couple weeks at a time.

@Dominiqueand I sometimes have rather spirited discussions about diet. I've been backing away from this topic lately. I have to respect his results.

@bikerhiker, your thoughts on intensity are simply the Maffetone method, which has been around since the early 80's but has not achieved widespread popularity. It's not a way to win races in the short term. I believe it is a way to long-term health and performance.

I'm especially interested in your specific thoughts on behavior modification and specifics about how you coach others. Few people have even been exposed to healthy diet or exercise regimens.

I'd write more, but it's time for my morning jog. 🙂

[bikerhiker]

I guess people doubt me because I don't post my weight results.  If it takes me to post my results, then here is the trend line for my weight.  I'm 50 years old and just like everyone else I'm trying to loose weight for healthy reasons back to 145 lbs.  My best racing weight was 142 lbs in my younger years (late 20's to mid 30's when I was racing still), so I'm not too far from that goal.  My average weekly weight loss has so far been 1 lbs/week, which means I had created a total of 3500 calories deficit over a span of a week, or 500 calories/day over 7 days.  I do not count calories like other calorie restricted diet participants, but I do eat healthy for 5 days and then eat whatever people eat on the weekends with close friends and families who don't necessarily eat healthy.  I believe in the human social aspect of life, which can make one happy and in order to socialize with other people in restaurants, social clubs etc, you have to eat what they have to eat.  So therefore I eat what they eat within reason.  Last week, I was at the BBQ spareribs event and this week I was at the Maritime Festival.  I included the photos of my feast.  These 2 items are at least 900 calories to 1000 calories for lunch and then dinner too.  But if you look at my trend weight and I've been reducing weight from 160lbs to 150lbs (avg) since June 22nd, 2018 of this year, you can still see that the trend is heading downwards.  It plateaued a bit, but then resumed its downward trend again.  

As you said correctly, my method had not gained wide spread popularity, although it is a proven method over the long term.  Many medical professional actually recommend the method I'm using.

The problem with the method I'm using now is "TIME".  Specially, it takes a longer time to reduce weight.  People want instant gratification; meaning they want instant result.  Which is why diet plans promise; "I can help you loose that belly fat in 21 days", loose this fat in weeks.  So notice that people want to loose weight now, in days and weeks not in a period of years.  But while it may take longer to loose weight my way, I will tend to keep it also.

Also, there is a misconception that my method requires one to be a marathon runner or some extreme sport fanatic.  That is definitely not the case.  Let me explain.  When we consume food, there are 3 macronutrients we take in.  Carbohydrates, Protein and Fat.  It's interesting to note that 1g of carbohydrates supply the body with 4 calories.  This is the same as with protein.  BUT, 1 gram of fat, however, supplies the body with 9 calories.  This is more than carbo and protein combined!!  So the key is to train the body to burn fat more efficiently.  This is what long distance events athletes do.  Train their body to burn more proportion of fat, so they last longer in the field, because there is a finite limit of your muscle glycogen storage.  This fat burning zone is actually quite doable for a lot of people, because this is mainly the zone where you exercise and can still engage in a conversation.  That is when you are fit.  When you are not fit, however, any exercise we do we spend mainly in the aerobic zone (Zone 3).  Core strength training, strength training etc are mainly in Zone 3..  Which is why doctors sometimes recommend doing strength training with a 10 min warmup and cool down to begin with.  High intensity training helps raise cardio fitness level.  Steady state cardio help improve fat burning.  A lot of Kenyans and Ethiopians didn't start out running marathons.  They actually start out running 100 meters dash and then progress towards running 26.2 miles.  When I started racing, I started out racing 100 meters dash as well.  This is how you build fitness, starting from short high intensity to longer steady state fat burning.  However, now a modern version to this method is to begin with long steady state fat burning to build an endurance weight while loosing weight and then add in shorter high intensity workouts to raise fitness level, so this will help raise fitness on longer workouts (meaning shorten the time on your longer workouts to achieve the same desired result).

So, my exercise routine is this (below shows my trend weight)

2 times a week, I swim or bike ride for 30 mins @ high intensity (HR Zone 3 and 4)

All day I walk as I work in the nursing profession so I can accumulate 10,000 steps easily

1 time a week I swim for 60min or bike ride for 2 to 4hrs for steady state cardio @ Zone 2 HR.

Before I coach others; first and foremost I ask them to be honest as to why they want to loose weight.  This is important because, a lot of people want to loose weight for various reasons not related to health.  They are in a negative emotional state and for whatever reasons, they think by loosing weight they can change their negative emotional state into a positive state and all their problems and issues relate to weight will disappear.  Well unfortunately, when they lost their weight, their life problems, personal issues and their negative emotional state didn't go away.  And guess what happens next?  They gained all their weight back and more.  Changing your physical appearances for the better do not necessarily change your personal insecurity and fears.  That is in your mind.  Working on certain aspects of your mind, your outlook on life and perspective and face all of the life challenges and not running away from them will in the end help you loose weight and keep them off permanently.  That is what I do before I coach them to weight loss and guess what, I lost a number of clients this way.  But I would rather keep clients who are sincere in improving their state of mind and body rather than clients who are only after the looks and instant results.  

 1/3 rack BBQ ribs + Pork + Corn on the cob with butter and salt

7oz patty Hamburger with all the trimmings and cheese

[GershonSurge]

@bikerhiker.

"BUT, 1 gram of fat, however, supplies the body with 9 calories.  This is more than carbo and protein combined!!  So the key is to train the body to primarily burn fat. more efficiently.  This is what long distance events athletes do.  Train their body to burn more proportion of fat, so they last longer in the field, because there is a finite limit of your muscle glycogen storage.  This fat burning zone is actually quite doable for a lot of people, because this is mainly the zone where you exercise and can still engage in a conversation"

@bikerhiker,

I'm 65 years old with no illnesses. I did recently cure neuroendocrine cancer with diet. It's considered incurable.

I picked out one portion of your post and slightly changed the wording. I'll explain why. First of all, the body does everything efficiently for any given preconditions. 

I wanted to point out a difference in approach for the sources of energy for endurance contests. My source is The Endurance Handbook by Dr. Phil Maffetone.

Summarizing greatly: When we exercise with a heart rate between 180 - our age and 10 beats below that, we burn 70% fat and 30% carbs. If we spend a long time exercising in this range (as in years) we greatly increase the intensity of the exercise we are able to do in that range. It takes years for the thousands of systems in our body to adapt. 

Let's look at the calculation you made. If a person carbohydrate loads, a 165-pound person has about two pounds of glycogen stored in their muscles and liver that turns to glucose as it is needed. That's about 970 grams or 3,880 calories. Let's say they run in the range Maffetone suggests, which is called the "Maximum Aerobic Function." This works out to about 70% of the theoretical maximum heart rate. If they have a spare 1,005 grams of fat in their body, which everyone does, they can theoretically burn 3,880 calories of glycogen and 9,045 calories of fat before bonking. That's enough to run about 120 miles without any food. The actual distance is less because the body keeps some glycogen reserve.

I'm glad you posted the Jack LaLanne video.  When he was 69, he had a radio interview with Dr. McDougall. During that interview, he stated he never did cardio training. It's hard to document because portable heart rate monitors weren't available until about 1983. I can say I never came close to cardio when I was training for marathons or endurance bicycling events. I almost flunked a stress test while as senior at the Air Force Academy because they couldn't get my heart rate above 125 at the limits of incline and speed they were allowed to use. When the tester said that, my heart rate shot up and I passed. 🙂

Recently, I entered a 100,000 Fitbit mile challenge. I figure it will take me 35 years to complete. One of the rules is I have to live to 100. The parameters change dramatically in this sort of challenge. I have to go slower to avoid injury and get more steps. I can't take many rest days. I also need to remain healthy. I can stay social without two days a week of unhealthy eating and listening to others complain about their ailments. 

The reason I asked you to show your numbers on your profile is not because I didn't believe you. It's because I can use your activity as a source of inspiration. I'm friends with @Baltoscott, and I'm constantly striving to beat his weekly steps except when I'm not. He is in better shape than I am. 

Time to go jogging again. 🙂

[Anna0383]

I walk 5 per day . I lost 40 pounds 3 years ago . I stopped walking and just start again I got up to 5 miles . I’m 60 years old . I lost 10 pounds in 30 weeks . I get very curvy and look much better .

[Mccaznj]

LOL - This is absolutely FALSE.  Do not take this guys advice, you wil end up burning yourself out while you eventually plateau with your weight loss .

Its all about diet, how you metabolize and the exercise you do in addition.  You don’t have to burn more calories than your daily/weekly intake.  Just create a small deficit, hydrate regularly and in regards to ge food you eat, be mindful.  Look up ketogenic diet, I promise you will get your results with moderate and not excessive exercise

[Dominique]

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@Mccaznj wrote:

LOL - This is absolutely FALSE.  Do not take this guys advice

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@Mccaznj: this topic has dozens of contributors, so it would help if you made it clear who "this guy" is, and what post you are referring to.

[MVibe]

Yeah man, there's a lot of idiots on here, let's just cut to the chase.

I was 13 stone and 4 pounds with high blood pressure and border type 2.

I am now 11 stone & in grat health. I did this much by walking and diet change, the only effort I have been putting in is to keep my build. The weight loss was my diet and steps.

[RamyaH]

Yes we can I have lost 25 kg in span of 2 years just by walking and by following healthy diet It is doable if we are consistent 

[Lameduck]

I’m 74 years old have no balance in my left ear and no perception in my left eye so running is out of the question......but I can walk faster so that’s what I will try as well as a good diet....