Will JUST walking help me lose weight?

[reeneitak]

I've been told a few times that walking can be more beneficial for sustained weight loss than any other sort of activity. Is that true? Has anyone seen weight loss by just walking and not really changing any other habits? Not trying to get out of weight training or other activities, but I enjoy walking & reading on the treadmill so I wonder if this would be good for losing some extra pounds 

[JohnRi]

I walk a lot. I walk 4-6 miles everyday.  I recenlty swapped out every other day for cycling, but due to a calf injury while walking, I was unable to walk for 3 weeks. Right now I'm walking again every day until I rebuild the muscle strength I lost sitting around for 3 weeks waiting to heal...

I walk 90 to 120 minutes a day.  I've been walking since October. I have lost 63 lbs. 

BUT I also changed my diet.  I'm eating around 1800 calories a day, mainly the same foods, with smaller portions, and a lot more vegetables.  I used to eat 3000-4000 calories a day, and I ballooned to 281 pounds.

Back in 2007, I tried walking only, and I was walking 3 miles every other day, in around 48 minutes.  Something I still cannot do today.  **ahem** that getting older part!  I was 41 back then, and I was 235 lbs when I started.  I walked for about 5 months, and was eating 3000+ calories back then.  I did get my weight down to 225, but then I stopped losing after about 3 months.  I bounced between 224 and 226.  I ended up quiting because I met my second wife, and got distracted...

I remembered that failure, so this time I did change my diet, and limit my calorie intake.  63 lbs lost so far...  35 more to go are the current results.

I think walking is one of the best exercises that most people can do.  It's low stress on the joints, and low for injuries.  But I have walked 700 miles, and during that time I've had issues like Runner's Toe, Loose Kneecap, pulled tendons, and a calf strain/partial tear.   Good shoes (1/2 size bigger than you normally wear), and stretching are key to avoiding injuries. But listoning to your body is critical.  If if hurts, pay attention.

While a few people can work off a bad diet, most of us mortals cannot.  Basically if you can 300-600 active minutes a day, IE 4-6 hours of exercise, you pretty much can eat anything you want. 

I've dropped 63 pounds mainly walking, but also because of my diet changes. 

To lose weight it's pretty simple, you have to eat less or increase physical activity, or both. 

Is it possible to just walk, and not change habits?  Depends on how bad your habits are.  If you eat a pint of ice cream a day, plus 3000 calories, then no I don't think so.  If you eat a sensible diet between (I'm guessing) 1300-2200 calories, then it might be possible to just walk without habit changes.  But the weight loss would be slow. 

How many pounds do you need to lose?  How quickly do you want to lose them?  How much do you eat in a day?

[reeneitak]

Wow - thanks so much @JohnRi! (I laughed out loud when you mentioned getting distracted by your wife... teehee.)

So - my diet is pretty bad. Here's exactly what I've had today: 1 glass of tea w/ 2 Stevia packets, half a Jimmy Dean de-lights sandwich, half a silce of pizza, small bag of pretzels, 1 can of Coke, low-cal string cheese, small bag of Reese Pieces, and about 1 cup of potato chips. And water.

Right now I weigh 148 and I am 5'4" tall. All my weight is around my middle and in my hips (at least I still have a tiny pinky finger!)

My problem is I get super discouraged when I try to eat healthy and work out. I just finished the 21 Day Fix. I lost weight, but I felt like I couldn't eat anything I liked. So after the 21 days, I just binged on all the stuff I missed having (hello, Drumsticks!)

My Mom used to walk a lot and kept her weight off that way. I enjoy walking and I do have good walking shoes. I wonder if walking for 30 min every day would show any results?

[WendyB]

You need to eat right. Its more about what you eat rather than exercise. 

Walking is good but you also need strength training as well. Not a lot. But it helps tone the muscles

[Dominique]

One advantage of walking is that it’s an activity that is safe for many people, that can be sustained for long enough to burn a decent amount of calories and that doesn’t require any particular recovery (= you can perform it everyday if you want). One hour of walking everyday may be sufficient to create the deficit necessary for losing weight. Or maybe not. It all depends on your current diet. If you have been able to maintain your weight with little activity and your current diet, adding activity while keeping your diet the same should result in some weight loss. 

[shipo]

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@reeneitak wrote:

I've been told a few times that walking can be more beneficial for sustained weight loss than any other sort of activity. Is that true? Has anyone seen weight loss by just walking and not really changing any other habits? Not trying to get out of weight training or other activities, but I enjoy walking & reading on the treadmill so I wonder if this would be good for losing some extra pounds 

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I've known people who've lost significant amounts of weight from walking alone, and others, myself included, where HUGE amounts of walking doesn't do much of anything.

As others have pointed out, it is the whole package of what you eat and what you do which determines how your body develops.

Keep us posted.

[JohnRi]

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@reeneitak wrote:

So - my diet is pretty bad. Here's exactly what I've had today: 1 glass of tea w/ 2 Stevia packets, half a Jimmy Dean de-lights sandwich, half a silce of pizza, small bag of pretzels, 1 can of Coke, low-cal string cheese, small bag of Reese Pieces, and about 1 cup of potato chips. And water.My problem is I get super discouraged when I try to eat healthy and work out. I just finished the 21 Day Fix. I lost weight, but I felt like I couldn't eat anything I liked. So after the 21 days, I just binged on all the stuff I missed having (hello, Drumsticks!)

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Ok, first of there are no DIETS.  All of these crazy fad diets, are just a joke.  So forget them.  What you need to do is change your diet forever.  That doesn't mean you can't have the reese pieces, or potato chips, but it does mean you can only have them occasionally. 

The good news your BMI is only 25.2.  24.99 and lower is normal.  So you have may 10, 20 lbs to lose at the very most. 

So you should work on changing your diet, and run a low 250 calorie deficit.  You're young enough, and your weight isn't that bad, that the sodium you are eating probably can't hurt you much, but it can add water weight to your body.  So another reason to avoid the pretzels, cheese, and potato chips.  Again you don't have to give them up, but you can't eat them every day either.  Once a week is ok, in small quantities.  You should eat more fruit, vegetables, unsalted nuts, etc. 

Soda, has to go.  Sorry, I know, I was 30 year diet coke drinker.  But besides tasting good, everything it does to you body is bad.  Empty calories, stress to your heart and kidneys, acid damaging your teeth and stomach.  Tea is ok, but sparely.  Fake sugars like Stevia throws off your body's sugar levels. I avoid them.

Walking 30 minutes will help, 60-90 minutes is better.  But any exercise is good.

Bottomline, 80%-90% of weightloss is changing your diet forever. 

Good luck!

[Dominique]

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@reeneitak wrote:

So - my diet is pretty bad. Here's exactly what I've had today: 1 glass of tea w/ 2 Stevia packets, half a Jimmy Dean de-lights sandwich, half a silce of pizza, small bag of pretzels, 1 can of Coke, low-cal string cheese, small bag of Reese Pieces, and about 1 cup of potato chips. And water.

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Forget about activity: your current diet is so bad you could easily lose weight without lifting your a*s off the couch, by just fixing it (the diet) 

[shipo]

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@JohnRi wrote:

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Tea is ok, but sparely. 

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Hmmm, back when I was working in China, Taiwan, and Japan, they universally believe copious quantities of green tea are very important to long-term health and weight management.  Prior to working over there I never liked green tea; turns out most folks over here A) buy crap tea, and B) have no clue how to properly prepare green tea.  For the last fifteen or so years I've been drinking roughly a gallon of unsweetened green per day.  🙂

[jdeinama]

A year ago, my doctor told me that if I walked 10,000 to 12,000 steps every day, I could eat anything I wanted and maintain my weight.  The problem was I had to lose 60 lbs. to get to the point where I wanted to maintain.

In 8 months, by watching my diet (Portion control more than what I ate) and averaging 11,000 steps per day, I lost 60 lbs. and have been able to maintain it since that point.  In fact, I have lost another 5 lbs.

For me, it was imperative that I change my diet and start moving.  The combination of the two have enabled me to be successful and maintain to this point.

I also have a support group that I meet with every week and weigh-in.  This holds me accountable.  The fitbit also holds me accountable.  Every day, I just keep walking until it vibrates my arm telling me that I have my 11,000 steps.

Good luck to you on your journey!

[JohnRi]

It's mostly a heart thing. I agree there are a lot of benefits to green tea.  My problem is the caffeine.  Granted it is a lot lower in Tea, than say soda.  I had an issue with an elevated resting heart rate.  Dropping weight helped with that, but giving up any form of caffeine made a huge difference for me.  My resting rate dropped 10 bpm when I gave it up.  And that corresponded to a 10 bpm drop even when I was lightly to moderate activity.. 

And when I gave up caffeine, I was down to drinking one can, 12 fluid ounces of diet coke a day.  Once I quit, over the next week my heart rate went down 10 bpm and stayed lower.  Since my resting rate used to be in the 90 to 100 range, it's possible that caffeine was the issue then too. Only then I was drinking 6 or more cans a day.  Really bad and unhealthy habit I had.

Decaffienated tea would be great. 

I also hate withdrawel.  I didn't have any caffeine withdrawal when I quit, because I weened myself off the soda. About a month later I was given a free diet coke...  One 20 once cup....   Two days later I had withdrawal, terrible splitting headache, I was like that for 2 days.  I knew it would go away if I just had a Diet coke...  But I suffered through it, and it was better 2 to 3 days later.

So I figured if I was going to do this whole heathy lifestyle, that meant no articial sweatners, no caffeine, lots of water, good and smart diet changes, and adding exercise.

But I just might be more sensative to caffeine after having had it in high quanties for most of my life.

But the agony of withdrawal, that's my main reason I rarely have an unsweat tea every now and then.

[FitBeforeFifty]

You can lose weight without any exercise if you meticulously track everything you put into your mouth and stick to a budget lower than your TDEE. The problem with walking is it burns fewer calories per minute than most other exercises so you'll have to eat fewer calories than if you spent that time doing something more vigorous. It's really just up to you. 

For example, this is how many calories I would burn per hour with the following activities (these are net values, subtracting out my sedentary TDEE):

1. 1 hour Walking 4 mph (considered very brisk): 276 calories
2. 1 hour Weight lifting: 345 calories
3. 1 hour Stationary bike (18 mph): 508 calories
4. 1 hour Running at 9:00 mile: 656 calories

Of course these numbers vary based on your size but you can see walking is the most inefficient of everything I do ... which I why I personally don't dedicate much "exercise time" to walking.

I can burn 500 calories running 45 minutes or I could spend 1 hour and 48 minutes to get the same calorie burn. If you have time to walk, that's great ... I'm just too impatient and busy to get much out of walking as an exercise. Of course as part of every day life, that's a different story ... I can take some walks around the building during break time at work, park way out in the parking lot etc... and spread out the time to the point where it isn't as noticeable. 

Now that I have a fitbit, I do try to get in some extra steps, but I just don't consider it "exercise", I just consider it life. I realize that point of view probably isn't popular on a fitbit forum but it's just my weird way of looking at exercise based on my history running and lifting.

The bottom line is you can lose weight any way you like but you'll probably have to track your food intake and match that intake to your activity level to have consistent success. 

[A_Lurker]

Walking is simple, and except for a good pair of walking shoes requires no equipment, no memberships, etc. You can walk outdoors during nice weather, and if close enough to a decent mall, indoors when the weather is bad.  You can lose weight only walking.  I wouldn't avoid the weight training though as I find it makes me feel better, stronger, and lost inches faster.  (this from someone whose weight room is still a disaster zone after a flood, but I'm now kind of itching to get back to it)

However, you will lose more weight with changes to your diet.  Don't cut everything you love out, as that's a sure fire method for failure.  In the last 13 weeks, without doing any formal exercise, I've lost a little over 9% of my bodyweight.  I do carry a lot of extra weight, but depending on the day can add 30-120 active minutes to my day.

You simply can't out train a bad diet.  If you increase your walking you have to be very careful that you don't slowly increase your food.  I know way too many people who will grab an extra slice of pizza and say 'oh, I'll work it off at the gym later'.  Walking more is certainly a good thing for many other reasons.

[shipo]

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@JohnRi wrote:

It's mostly a heart thing. I agree there are a lot of benefits to green tea.  My problem is the caffeine.  Granted it is a lot lower in Tea, than say soda.  I had an issue with an elevated resting heart rate.  Dropping weight helped with that, but giving up any form of caffeine made a huge difference for me.  My resting rate dropped 10 bpm when I gave it up.  And that corresponded to a 10 bpm drop even when I was lightly to moderate activity.. 

And when I gave up caffeine, I was down to drinking one can, 12 fluid ounces of diet coke a day.  Once I quit, over the next week my heart rate went down 10 bpm and stayed lower.  Since my resting rate used to be in the 90 to 100 range, it's possible that caffeine was the issue then too. Only then I was drinking 6 or more cans a day.  Really bad and unhealthy habit I had.

Decaffienated tea would be great. 

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Hmmm, when I sleep my heart rate drops into the low 30s, and during the day my RHR typically hovers a point (sometimes two) either side of 42.  If I was to stop drinking my 200-250 ounces of green tea per day I'd be afraid what my heart rate would drop to.  😛

[USAF-Larry]

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@reeneitak wrote:

Has anyone seen weight loss by just walking and not really changing any other habits?

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That is probably not very likely, unless you do a whole lot of walking. To loose weight, you must burn more energy (calories) than you consume. So, if you don't change the habits of what you eat and drink, the walking probably won't burn off much weight.  A lifestyle change includes improving the diet and increasing exercise.

[SunsetRunner]

You can lose weight, but you must walk alot 5-6 days a week.  

[SunsetRunner]

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@JohnRi wrote:

While a few people can work off a bad diet, most of us mortals cannot.  Basically if you can 300-600 active minutes a day, IE 4-6 hours of exercise, you pretty much can eat anything you want. 

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I can attest to being able to eat whatever I want.  But I don't do it.   I ate 4 homemade hamburgers( the first 2 was good so I cooked 2 more)  a day before my planned long walk.    I woke up weighing less than the previous day after eating those 4 burgers.  

[OCDOC]

@Dominique wrote:

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@reeneitak wrote:

So - my diet is pretty bad. Here's exactly what I've had today: 1 glass of tea w/ 2 Stevia packets, half a Jimmy Dean de-lights sandwich, half a silce of pizza, small bag of pretzels, 1 can of Coke, low-cal string cheese, small bag of Reese Pieces, and about 1 cup of potato chips. And water.

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Forget about activity: your current diet is so bad you could easily lose weight without lifting your a*s off the couch, by just fixing it (the diet) 

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Absolutely agree.

It would be hard to 'invent' a diet less conducive to weight loss than what you listed. 🙂  Walking won't do it.

I imagine 2+ hours of intense exercise may push your balance to loss, but eating ANY sensible diet will likely be magical for you.

[reeneitak]

Thanks so much, everyone!

Yup - my diet sucks. It's ALWAYS been bad, but my metabolism has slowed way down in my 30's so I can't eat like I used to.

Problem is - I am super picky. But I am sure that also comes from the fact that I've eaten junk my whole life.

I did the C25K once and I feel like I lost some weight (never actually weighed myself) but I was still feeling lethargic.

Spoiler

(again, hello bad diet.) This might be another topic I could post, but what are some healthy eating tips for picky people? 

Spoiler

[reeneitak]

I have no idea why my previous post has "spoilers" in it?? Tried to delete. Hmmmm