If you want to stay fit and healthy, it’s important to exercise regularly. This is because being physically active reduces your risk of developing health conditions like heart disease, diabetes and cancer. In addition to helping you live a longer and healthier life, exercise can also be beneficial for weight loss and maintenance. Fortunately, walking is a great form of physical activity that’s free, low risk and accessible to most people. In fact, walking isn’t just good for you — it’s one of the easiest forms of exercise to incorporate into your day-to-day life. This article explores how walking more often can help you lose weight and belly fat
| Walking speed (km/hr) | Pace | Calories Burned approx. (in 1 hr) |
| 3 | medium | 220 |
| 4 | medium | 280 |
| 5 | medium | 325 |
| 6 | brisk | 390 |
| 7 | brisk | 470 |
| Age | Target Heart Rate (at 60 % level) |
| 20 | 120 |
| 30 | 114 |
| 40 | 108 |
| 50 | 102 |
| 60 | 96 |
Maintaining the target heart rate gives the maximum benefit of burning fat for fuel and most of the energy comes from adipose tissue that is fat cells.
Walking helps preserve Lean Muscle
When people cut calories and lose weight, they often lose some muscle in addition to body fat. This can be counterproductive, as muscle is more metabolically active than fat. This means it helps you burn more calories each day.
Walking Burns Belly Fat
Storing a lot of fat around your midsection has been linked to an increased risk of diseases like type 2 diabetes and heart disease. In fact, men with a waist circumference greater than 40 inches (102 cm) and women with a waist circumference greater than 35 inches (88 cm) have abdominal obesity, which is considered a health risk. One of the most effective ways to reduce belly fat is to regularly take part in aerobic exercise, such as walking.
Walking improves your Mood
Exercise is known to boost your mood. In fact, physical activity has been shown to improve your mood and decrease feelings of stress, depression and anxiety. It does this by making your brain more sensitive to the hormone’s serotonin and norepinephrine. These hormones relieve feelings of depression and stimulate the release of endorphins, which make you feel happy.
Its simple activity and recommended by all experts-
Fitness walking is suitable for just about everybody. And it’s a totally natural activity which can be enjoyed by all the family-from the youngest to the oldest, even those recovering from illness. It can be done almost anywhere, at any time, and it requires no special skills. Its recommended by exercise physiologists, biomechanical experts, cardiologists, chest experts, obesity experts and stress experts, among others.
Its inexpensive
All you need is a pair of comfortable, well-cushioned walking shoes that offer good heel and arch support. Fitness walking is cheap- so all the family can afford to participate in it.
How to Incorporate More Walking into Your Lifestyle
Being more physically active has a host of benefits, including improved fitness and mood, a reduced risk of disease and an increased likelihood of living a longer, healthier life. Because of this, it’s recommended that people participate in at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week.
In walking terms, that means walking for around 2.5 hours per week (at least 10 minutes at a time) at a brisk pace. Doing more exercise than this has additional health benefits and reduces your risk of disease even further.
There are many ways to increase the amount of walking you do and achieve this target.
- Use a fitness tracker and log your steps to motivate yourself to move more.
- Make a habit of taking a brisk walk on your lunch break or after dinner.
- Ask a friend to join you for an evening walk.
- Walk your dog every day or join a friend on their dog walks.
- Take a walking meeting with a colleague, instead of meeting at your desk.
- Do errands like taking the kids to school or going to the store on foot.
- Walk to work. If it’s too far, park your car further away or get off your bus a few stops early and walk the rest of the way.
- Try picking new and challenging routes to keep your walks interesting.
- Join a walking group.
Every little bit helps, so start small and try to gradually increase the amount you walk daily.
Walking can also help with:
* Back pain * Heart disease * Cholesterol
* Bone strength * Respiratory problems * Cardiac rehabilitation
* Arthritis * Pregnancy * Premenstrual issues
* Hypertension * Smoking * Varicose veins
Walking is a moderate-intensity exercise that can be easily incorporated into your daily life. Simply walking more often can help you lose weight and belly fat, as well as provide other excellent health benefits, including a decreased risk of disease and improved mood. In fact, walking just one mile burns about 100 calories.
If you want to lose weight, you’ll get the best results by combining your increase in physical activity with healthy changes to your diet. So, keep walking and eat right is the key towards good health.