Walking for weight loss?

[kannon]

Try intermittent fasting. I increased my exercise considerably and only lost a few pounds.
This past January I started IF and I have lost a total of 14 lbs or almost 10% of my body weight. I kept them off too.
There is a whole thread on IF on here. I found it to be the easiest way I have ever encountered to lose weight.

IF can be very good. Just delay breakfast till noon time, that allows for a long 12-16 hrs fast from dinner. I have found skipping morning calories makes it easier for reducing overall daily calorie intake.
Drink water, lots of it. And unsweetened tea or coffee. Do this when feel hungry, and hunger goes away.
While doing this, walking is great. Will help you stay in good shape and compliment IF but the reall way of losing weight is just calorie reduction. I try to get outside and walk, sometimes a hike in the woods, or just treadmill while watching Netflix. Try for 10k steps and when you walk vary the intensity - sort of like HIIT (Hi Intensity Interval Training). Walk fast/high incline for a minute, rest for 2 minutes, repeat.
Best of luck, you can do it. Just be patient and let IF work for you.

 

[jim584672]

The only thing that will rid the weight is strict calorie counting. Walking is good for you, but it isn't going to do much for weight loss.

 

[Markola]

The only thing that will rid the weight is strict calorie counting. Walking is good for you, but it isn't going to do much for weight loss.

+1. The app My Fitness Pal is a good place to log everything one eats. You can set goals and it makes tracking toward them easy, and they have a community forum to share progress with. My instructor had me turn off the function that subtracts the calories one burns through exercise, because he said that function isn’t very accurate. I walk a lot, too, which has lots of benefits but weight loss is about eating the right amount of healthy food and no more.

 

[LOL!]

Calories in calories out is not the case. It's so individual and specific to the person.

So you describe a bunch of calories-in-calories-out stuff supporting calories-in-calories-out, then you write the statement above. Was that a typo?

Certainly, the amount of calories a specific person uses in any given minute, hour, day, week, or month is specific to the person. And so is what nutrition the person consumes.

If you were saying that some people use less calories walking 2 miles than other people, then that is true. If you were saying that some people may absorb more calories from a pint of french fries, then that is true, too. It is also true that the same individual person can adapt and become more efficient at a given exercise; that person can also adapt to the food they eat because the cells in the tissues of their intestinal tract, liver, and the rest of their body will express more or less of the different genes and create more or less of the enzymes, transcription factors, and other proteins needed.

 

[MRG]

+1. The app My Fitness Pal is a good place to log everything one eats. You can set goals and it makes tracking toward them easy, and they have a community forum to share progress with. My instructor had me turn off the function that subtracts the calories one burns through exercise, because he said that function isn’t very accurate. I walk a lot, too, which has lots of benefits but weight loss is about eating the right amount of healthy food and no more.

+1

DW and I dropped an aggregated 120 pounds five years ago with MFP, still down 115.

 

[Rianne]

So you describe a bunch of calories-in-calories-out stuff supporting calories-in-calories-out, then you write the statement above. Was that a typo?

Certainly, the amount of calories a specific person uses in any given minute, hour, day, week, or month is specific to the person. And so is what nutrition the person consumes.

Not at all. Did you read the article I posted? You just stated why calories in calories out is not the case for an individual. Why diets do not work. They may provide temporary weight loss. If I ate 2500 calories of donuts or 2500 calories of butter everyday, I guarantee I would not maintain my weight or health.

"a bunch of calories-in-calories-out stuff" is not what I posted. A person burns 70-75% of their calories at rest. That's what BMR is. The quality of those calories determine the health of your body and weight loss.

 

[Nemo2]

I'ts all so confusing...I was just reading about that there Blue Bonnet Plague...not that I eat margarine, y'understand.

 

[sergio]

I was in the best shape of my life when I lived in China and Hong Kong. I ate a lot (and the food there is far from healthy) and drank lots of beer, yet actually lost weight. Why? Because we had to walk literally everywhere. I must have walked or stood for a minimum of 2-3 hours a day just as part of my daily life.

When we went out to eat, we'd go down 5 flights of stairs, walk 10 minutes to the subway station, stand on a packed subway for 10-30 minutes, then walk another 5-20 minutes to the restaurant. We'd do the same going back, expect going home meant climbing 5 flight of stairs. Just getting to the restaurant probably burned a couple calories. Now repeat that a few times a day...

 

[PatrickA5]

For the most part, a calorie is a calorie when considering weight loss. If your BMR (or TDEE) is say 2,500 per day and you eat 2,000 calories of Twinkies, you're going to lose weight (mainly fat). If the same person eats 3,000 calories of salmon and salad, they're going to gain weight. That's not saying the salmon/salad person might not be healthier in some respects due to the nutritional value of the food eaten, but there aren't really any "magic" foods when it comes to fat loss.

That's what makes calorie counting so powerful. It can be a pain to do, but if you track things carefully you'll know why you're either gaining or losing over larger time periods.

 

[eytonxav]

Calories in calories out is not the case. It's so individual and specific to the person.

I agree with this. In my experience not all calories are created equal. Nutrient dense calories are best, and for people that are subject to insulin resistance, keep your carbs down, unless you want to pack on visceral fat which can lead to health problems.

 

[Rianne]

I was in the best shape of my life when I lived in China and Hong Kong. I ate a lot (and the food there is far from healthy) and drank lots of beer, yet actually lost weight.

So, you didn't eat a traditional Chinese diet? Sounds pretty healthy to me.

"Indeed, the traditional Chinese diet is far healthier than the traditional American diet, which often features meat as the focus of the meal, says T. Colin Campbell, PhD, professor of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y."

"Unlike the meat-heavy plates featured in many Chinese restaurants in the U.S., the traditional Chinese diet consists mainly of plant foods, small amounts of fish and poultry, and only occasionally red meat, says Campbell, the director of the Cornell-China-Oxford Project on Nutrition, Health, and Environment, a long-term study comparing the diets of rural China with average American ones. He has been tracking the eating habits of people living in 100 Chinese rural villages since the early 1980s."


https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/chinese-secret#1


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[street]

In order to lose weight walking alone won't do it. Your consumption of food is key if you want to lose weight, like most have already stated.

Doesn't the body need ~1800 calories a day to maintain your weight and for health reasons

So, if a person walked 5 miles a day ~ 400 to 500 calories are burned in just that one activity.

 

[Dawg52]

It takes me 40 to 45 minutes to walk 5000 steps with the dog on the golf course. It's a pretty good walk tho as it's up and down hills. But to get to 10k steps you have to devote a lot more time to it than I desire. I also play golf(riding) 3-4 times a week and ride my bike everyday when at my condo on the coast. I get a lot more exercise there as I ride 1.5 hours and moving pretty fast. This time of the year when I'm done I'm soaking wet and my legs really feel the workout. So I may not reach the numbers that are set by some barometers but I think I do ok. I've got to work on my diet tho. Too many bad snacks.

 

[bloom2708]

It's the food + calorie tracking + walking.

 

[sengsational]

I disagree with calorie counting as essential for weight loss; lots of people just change what they eat and when they eat and pounds come off.

I don't think you can win the battle against appetite by knowing how many calories you consume or expend. Short term battles are easy to win, but long term, the war will be lost if that's your only strategy.

Your micribiome can make it nearly impossible to shed weight. It can be changed, but takes a long time of training with a consistent set of food choices and feeding schedule. Obviously a Twinkie-based micribiome is not a natural, plant-based, micribiome.

 

[misanman]

Calories in/calories out works for me. Just saying. Also walk three miles every morning but sad to see from this thread that it doesn't help with weight control.

 

[LOL!]

Calories in/calories out works for me. Just saying. Also walk three miles every morning but sad to see from this thread that it doesn't help with weight control.

That's just saying that a mere 300 calories of exercise a day only helps a little bit with weight control. I would not call that sad.

 

[LOL!]

I have a Garmin sport watch. It estimates the amount of calories I use a day. I guess from my weight, height, and heart rate it estimates the calories I use while not performing some activity like running, cycling, walking, swimming, .... So far today it estimates that I have 45 active calories which makes sense since I've been laying around. My resting calories (BMR) are about 1800 calories a day. I don't count "calories in" at all, but I do weigh myself every day.

Does anybody else use a watch to get a number for resting calories? Do you believe the number?

 

[PatrickA5]

I have a Garmin sport watch. It estimates the amount of calories I use a day. I guess from my weight, height, and heart rate it estimates the calories I use while not performing some activity like running, cycling, walking, swimming, .... So far today it estimates that I have 45 active calories which makes sense since I've been laying around. My resting calories (BMR) are about 1800 calories a day. I don't count "calories in" at all, but I do weigh myself every day.

Does anybody else use a watch to get a number for resting calories? Do you believe the number?

My Apple Watch 5 does a BMR type of calculation called a "resting" energy calculation (normally around 2,100 calories). It also does an "active" energy calculation which I'm guessing is based on steps taken and other intentional exercise. In my case, it's usually around 300cals but I do very little intentional exercise. Added together they equal around 2,400cal per day which is very close to my actual TDEE calculated using my actual calories consumed over the last two years. I use MyFitnessPal to keep track of calories - haven't missed a day in the last two years.

 

[Rickt]

Thanks, I have peeked at that thread occasionally. I'll have to look at it again. If I could lose 20 pounds or so, I would be thrilled.

I have lost 35 Lbs since March, 2020 (210 Lbs to 174 Lbs) by changing my diet to 100% plant based diet and eliminating carbs from grains (bread, wheat, white rice etc). Also changed exercise routine to include Squats, yoga, push ups, planks and walking only 20 minutes a day but adding 10 minutes of stairs after each meal. I am feeling good and full of energy but now must go buy all new clothes.

 

[rayinpenn]

Down about 30lbs, 2 pant sizes since I started walking 1 hour and a bit each day. Gave up all liquor, wine and eat carefully on a smaller plate. Gave up diet soda will have naturally flavored seltzer like zero calls. Walk early in the day...once done I am feeling great all day.

 

[tb001]

To calorie count or not probably depends on where you’re starting from. If you have lots of easy stuff to cut (sweetened drinks, desserts, etc...) then just going low carb and avoiding some foods can make a huge difference.

Personally, I’d already cut the easy stuff years ago and we eat pretty healthfully, so it’s taken calorie counting to figure out where the hidden pitfalls are in my diet. (Olive oil, I’m looking at you!) I was pretty shocked when I saw the total calorie content on some of our favorite healthy meals.

 

[sergio]

Down about 30lbs, 2 pant sizes since I started walking 1 hour and a bit each day. Gave up all liquor, wine and eat carefully on a smaller plate. Gave up diet soda will have naturally flavored seltzer like zero calls. Walk early in the day...once done I am feeling great all day.

Giving up alcohol (assuming you drink regularly) is possibly the highest-impact change one can make to their diet to lose weight. I used to be big into craft beer and later realized a beer I drank all the time had like 250 calories in a pint!

At least 250 calories of high quality ice cream will have some protein, calcium, fiber, and traces of other nutrients - and it fills you up to some degree...

 

[vafoodie]

Here’s the thing—I have never eaten a lot. But I know cutting carbs works. I’m down 5 lbs since Sunday just by cutting carbs and sloppily doing IF. Now I’m motivated to not be sloppy.

 

[braumeister]

a beer I drank all the time had like 250 calories in a pint!

Back when I ran a lot, I used to use it as a quick calculator. I knew that every three miles I ran would give me one completely guilt-free beer that evening.