Tips to Lose Weight by Walking
It’s good to do any kind of physical activity if you want to lose weight. In fact, walking is one of the ways you can do this. Not only does it give you physical benefits, but it’s also good for your mind. In this article, we’ll look at the most important tips to lose weight by walking. In addition, we’ll see the advantages that walking has for your health.
Health benefits of walking
As we mentioned, in addition to losing weight, walking has lots of other health benefits. Here are just a few:
- Psychological benefits: in many cases, it lets you break away from your daily routine. At the same time, it can help boost concentration and attention.
- Improve heart health: a simple activity such as walking increases your heart’s resistance. Also, it helps with blood circulation.
- Burn calories: a Wilkin study showed that walking three miles a day could burn up to 270 calories in sedentary people. Therefore, it’s more than possible to lose weight by walking.
- Reduce the risk of cancer: although there are lots of factors and prevention isn’t a “magic formula”, a series of recent studies (2019) shows that maintaining an active lifestyle reduces the risk of colon cancer in younger people.
Five tips to lose weight by walking
As we discussed earlier, many people are unaware of the benefits of walking for their health. If you add correct nutrition, you’ll be closer to your goal of losing weight by walking.
If you have a good energy balance, based on walking regularly and follow a balanced diet, losing those extra pounds will be easier. To jumpstart this process, pay attention to the following tips:
1. Be consistent with the activity that you do
It’s important to become aware and imagine yourself doing the activity. You need to be consistent if you want to achieve your goal. To do this, you should walk at least 150 minutes per week. This comes to roughly 20 minutes per day.
Also, it’s important to adapt this into your daily routine and choose what time of day works best. At the same time, it’s good to instruct the help of a professional to tell you what technique you should use while walking.
Even in an activity as simple as walking, if you don’t have the right technique, your risk of injury increases. To prevent this, it’s best to choose shoes that adapt to your feet. In fact, not all gym shoes work the same way.
Finally, just as with shoes, the clothes you wear are also important. In this sense, pay attention to how well your clothes breathe.
2. Keep the rhythms and times controlled
For this, it’s important for a professional to decide what skill level you have, and how to start. In the beginning, it’s important to not walk for more than 30 minutes. This way, your metabolism can adapt.
Then, you can gradually increase the time. After just a few weeks, you can reach 150 minutes of weekly activity.
3. Control your posture to lose weight by walking
As we mentioned earlier, a good technique is essential to avoid the risk of walking injuries. For this reason, controlling your posture is essential to achieve your goals.
Make sure you stay as upright as possible, with relaxed shoulders and a straight chest and trunk. Similarly, synchronize the movement of your legs and arms. This way, you can burn fat.
4. Control your breathing
As you walk, it’s important to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, as naturally as possible. This is important if you want to get enough oxygen to your muscles, which would help you walk longer. Also, don’t ever stop breathing.
5. Stay hydrated to lose weight by walking
Despite the fact that you might not always be thirsty, make sure you stay hydrated, both before and after walking. This way, you can prevent health problems or even injuries.
Conclusion
As you can see, it’s possible to lose weight by walking if you set your mind to it. However, for this, don’t forget to also follow a balanced diet.
If you consider these tips, you could start seeing results after the first month, but it depends on each person. Start walking and improve your health today!
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- Rezende L, Lee D, Keum N, Nimptsch K, Song M, Lee I, et al. Physical activity during adolescence and risk of colorectal adenoma later in life: results from the Nurses Health Study II. British Journal of Cancer. 2019.
- Wilkin LD, Cheryl A, Haddock BL. Energy expenditure comparison between walking and running in average fitness individuals. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2012;26(4):1039–1044.
