Walk Off Your Pounds and Lose Weight Fast!

People are constantly on the lookout for some magic pill or enlightening weight loss secret, and in the process they tend to forget that the best weight loss plans simply involve an increased emphasis on commonly known activities and healthier eating habits. One of the most effective weight loss activities is, very simply, walking.

Set The Right Pace

If you want to walk to lose weight fast, the first thing you need to do is set the right pace. You don't need to set off like a torpedo and tire yourself out in ten minutes. Neither will a leisurely, idle pace really help. The best strategy is to walk at a moderately brisk pace that you think you can maintain for about half an hour. A speed of 3-4 miles per hour is pretty good. Basically, if you can get yourself breathing harder than normal and can feel your body warming up with the effort, you are at a good pace.

According to most medical experts, to maintain good health, an average person should get about 30-minutes a day of cardiovascular exercise, five days a week. Walking counts, and it burns in the range of 100-165 calories per mile, depending on your weight. So in 30 minutes of brisk walking, you could bu
200-300 calories.

How Much?

If you maintain this effort five days a week, without altering your diet in any way, at the end of the month you would weigh 1-2 pounds less than you would have without any exercise. This means that over six months, you could lose up to 6 kg! That's an excellent rate of weight loss, and shows you just how effective walking is.

Walking vs. Jogging

A lot of people believe that unless they get out on a jog, and get themselves sweating and out-of-breath at the end of the spell, they will not burn enough calories to lose weight fast. This is a false perception.

There is a negligible difference in the number of calories brisk walking and jogging burn per mile. What really matters is the amount of distance you cover. So, you could do a hard jog for 8 minutes and tire yourself out, but you would still not burn as many calories as someone who walked briskly for 20 minutes and covered more distance than you in the process!

Besides, with walking you run the risk of fewer impact-related injuries than jogging. So, if the objective is simply losing weight, for a person of average fitness, walking is the more efficient of the two.

Bringing Walking Into Your Life

The good news is that the 30 minutes of walking you need to do in a day for quick weight loss, does not have to be done at one go. The total time of exercise is what matters for burning calories, not how it breaks up. So, if you are really busy, you can simply incorporate walking into your usual routine, by parking your car one block away or walking down to buy groceries or run your daily errands.

Walking also tones your muscles, which in turn speeds your metabolism and helps you burn more calories even while you rest. It also improves your cardiovascular health, your overall fitness, bone density and cognitive health! Talk about a 'magic' strategy to lose weight fast!

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