Weight Loss without Worry

Spring is trying desperately to break through and with it comes a natural motivation to be more active. Last weekend the temperature here in Pennsylvania shot up into the 70′s and every neighbor and their dog was outside enjoying the weather with a nice leisurely stroll in the sun.

With the return of nice weather my inbox also springs into action with many questions about walking for weight loss so I wanted to share some thoughts with you.

Can you lose weight from walking? The quick answer is yes. Walking is going to help create a calorie deficit if everything else stays the same (i.e. you eat the same number of calories). Your body will burn about 300 calories from a brisk one hour walk and if you do this every day of the week you will create a calorie deficit of 2,100 calories and lose about 2/3 of a pound over the course of the week (It is a rough estimate that a 3,500 calorie deficit will allow you to drop 1 pound).

So do I recommend you start a walking program if you want to shed pounds? Sure…but here is the caveat, walking does not build muscle and muscle is what drives your metabolism helping you keep the weight off.

Let’s look at an example and call it Scenario #1, if you walk 7 days a week for 1 hour you will burn 2,100 calories that week (300 calories/hour x 7 days). If you continue this exercise routine for 8 weeks you will burn enough calories to lose 5 pounds. Not bad considering you made no diet changes, but in order to keep seeing weight loss results you have to keep walking 7 days a week for 1 hour. Is that realistic for you? Well, for some of you it is but I suspect life will interfere for others.

Walking will help your body burn calories but it will do very little to stimulate your metabolism and your metabolism is what turns your body into a better fat burner. For your body to become a better fat burning machine you want to add muscle and here is why…every pound of muscle on your body eats up about 50 calories a day (a pound of fat uses less then 10 calories a day).

Let’s create a Scenario #2 and say that instead of walking every day of the week you walk just4 days and burn 1,200 calories and you add 2 days of strength training and 1 day of rest. If you gain 2.5 pounds of muscle from your strength training efforts your body will burn 875 additional calories per week (2.5 pounds of muscle burn 125 calories each of the 7 days of the week). Add that to the 1,200 calories burned from walking and you create a 2,075 calories deficit.

Which scenario wins in the long run? Hands down the winner is Scenario #2 because this routine boosts your metabolism, keeps your body burning fat all day long and you invest less time.

Scenario #1

Walk 7 days a week for 1 hour = calorie burn 2,100
Total calorie burn for the week = 2,100
Calories your body continues to burn after exercise = 0
Days of rest = 0
Time investment = 7 hours per week

Scenario #2

Walk 4 days a week for 1 hour = calorie burn 1,200
Strength training 2 days a week for 30 minutes = metabolic boost 125 extra calories burned/day
Total calorie burn for the week = 2,075
Calories your body continues to burn after exercise = 125 calories each day
Days of rest = 1
Time investment = 5 hours per week

If you want to lose weight and keep it off – build muscle. Next week I will share a simple workout you can follow to start building muscle and the beautiful thing is you will be using only your body weight as resistance, till then feel free to share your comments below. What are your thoughts on mixing walking with strength training?