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Walking for Weight Loss: NOT that effective?

Walking seems to be the most popular form of weight loss cardio. I have long been critical of it’s effectiveness so I wanted to write this post to address some of the weight loss problems and advantages of weight loss.

Advantages of Walking for Weight Loss

I thought I would do the nice and happy aspects of walking as a form of weight loss cardio before I get into the controversial facts and figures. I have a habit of getting myself into trouble with this and similar issues so I’m assuming this time won’t be any different.

1 | It’s easy

This is the aspect of walking that I find most frustrating and couldn’t decide whether to put it as an advantage or a disadvantage. As a martial artist and avid sports player I find walking a bit weak. And here comes the controversial statement - to me walking is summed up best when I say:

It is inbetween running and doing nothing!

However, if you have bad knees, an injury or are super unfit then walking is probably for you. It has a much less risk of pulling any sort of injury and if you are obese or overweight you have less chance of having a heart attack.

2 | It burns fat and not muscle

Let’s say you get up every morning and go for a run before breakfast. The danger there is that you might be burning muscle due to the type of energy needed and the speed at which your body needs to supply it.

Walking, on the other hand, is an excellent pre-breakfast weight loss cardio because it gets your heart rate up to around a level where your body will quite happily tap into your fat reserves for energy supply.

**Fat Burning Pace - I should note here that you probably won’t tap into fat reserves until about 30-45 minutes into your workout and you should be walking at about 60%-70% of your maximum heart rate.

3 | You don’t need anything

To get a good walking workout you don’t need anything at all. You don’t need equipment and you dont need any advanced level of fitness. You just do it.

4 | After dinner weight loss workout

Walking is a very valuable post-dinner weight loss workout as it can be done a full stomach. Walking isn’t very hard and as such allows you to squeeze in a light cardio session before bed so as to burn a few calories before you turn in for the night.

Remember, most of your dinner meal gets absorbed as fat as your body has minimal need for the energy while your are sleeping.

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Disadvantages of Walking for Weight Loss

As you might have noticed this is not a very unbaised article. Here is the section on walking for weight loss where I really shine!

1 | It simply isn’t as effective for weight loss

I dont care what any studies have shown about walking for weight loss, it’s all bull. For every study that says walking is the best way to burn fat I will find you two studies that say walking is not as good as running.

However, I’m not just making some unsubstantiated claims here - I do have some reasoning. Firstly, my clients, friends and myself have made the best weight loss gains with running. Not biking, not swimming, etc. - running. I experiment with both low and high intensity running and this works amazingly.

Here is the reason why. As you might have noticed I am a big fan of progression. In order to become good at anything you must continue to challenge yourself. To get big muscles you must increase the weight you lift all the time. You would never get big lifting a 5kg weight the rest of your life. Likewise, if you want to make weight loss gains you need to progress.

HERE COME THE COMPLAINTS! I can hear you conservatives already! I hear you about to butt in and say: “But if you run you will not be in the fat burning zone!” Well, you are wrong. Not only WILL you be in the fat burning zone, you will burn more fat than if you were walking. I will state my name on this. Here are the main reasons why:

1. When you run you increase your heart rate and your metabolism and thus you burn fat LONG AFTER the session has finished.
2. You make muscle gains and other similar things such that your metabolism and fat burning increase.

There, I am glad that is off my chest! That is the main reason why walking isn’t as good for weight loss as running. Find me a fat sprinter, football player basketball player - these guys run.

2 | Walking is boring

People who use walking as their main form of weight loss cardio generally get bored pretty fast. This is understandable.

• You aren’t pushing yourself very hard and as such you don’t have any internal “demons” to battle like you do when your running.
• You move slowly so the scenery doesn’t change that much.
• There are only so many songs on an Ipod.

It is very important to keep your fitness and exercise interesting. Especially with weight loss where people give up far too easily. If you have trouble sticking to your weight loss cardio then I would get rid of walking except for days where you are really tired.

Conclusion
I would love to hear some comments from women who have had some POSITIVE results with walking. I am willing to accept it is possible.

I am going to write an article soon on how to jazz up your walking session so as to maximize weight loss effectivness as well as to keep it interesting.

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