One of the consistent features of weight loss is being active. Anything you can do to help create a calorie deficit is good for weight loss.
One of the best ways to do this in London is to walk more - in many cases it’s a way of getting some accidental exercise in, reducing stress levels, getting to a destination quicker and arguable the best reason, it’s a way of avoiding the busy tube.
Anyone who has jumped on a rush hour train knows EXACTLY what I mean! Cramped, sweaty, uncomfortable. Even walking in the rain is a better option than that!
Does Walking Burn Many Calories?
Yes - a surprising amount. A 30 minute walk burns around 200 calories - more if it is done at a faster speed or up hills.
If you managed 30 minutes of walking per day, you’re burning an additional 1400 calories per week. Not only that, you’re helping your body to recover from the training you’ve been doing in the week. Being active stimulates blood flow, helps the body to remove waste products and maintains connective tissue health.
Jumping off the tube a stop early really is a way to help you drop body fat and improve your general health and it takes very little in the way of effort. Walking isn’t too difficult - even if the weather is bad you can take a brolly or waterproof coat with you to work! In fact, the streets are likely to be emptier so it’ll make walking a whole load easier!
How to Fit Extra Walking Into Your Day
I’m not going to make this section patronising - but I do want to give you a few simple tips that will get extra steps into your day…
If you can, walk to and from work. Not only is it healthier, it’s also a great way to mentally prepare/unwind at the beginning and end of the day.
Walk to the shops for your shopping - take a rucksack with you. On the way it’s easy, on the way back you’re carrying a weighted bag with you!
Walk to the gym and back - it’s the perfect way of starting your warm up early and adding extra work to your post-workout cool down.
Make walking a sociable thing. Go for a walk with friends or your partner. Explore somewhere - go somewhere and do something different!
Take walking meetings. Steve Jobs used to do this - apparently he believed being outside and moving improved thinking and creativity. Makes sense - your brain is more stimulated.
Get a watch with a step counter - if you have a target you’re more likely to change your behaviours to hit your daily steps goal.
If you even managed to get a couple of these extra walks into your day, you’ll be creating a beneficial habit that will give you all kinds of physical and mental benefits, not to mention burn thousands of extra calories per year.
Weight Loss is a Long Term Project
The reality is you can’t diet for a weekend and reach your goal weight - you make a commitment to the task and follow it through. If we take the approach of ‘marginal gains’ to weight loss, it’s almost always more successful.
Marginal gains is an approach that sees you make small, incremental changes across lots of aspects of a task. What this means is that rather than making aggressive changes in one aspect, you can make more subtle changes across a series of areas. Weight loss is a key one - I’ll show you how in practice…
Say you have a target of staying in a 500 calorie per day deficit, you could do this from diet alone. You could also train extra hard to achieve this (not a great idea).
Another way is you could diet less aggressively, say a 300 calorie deficit and make up the other 200 calories with a daily walk (you’d have to monitor this though, as not all 30 minute walks are the same). If you like your food and struggle with dietary discipline, you have to find other ways to burn the calories and walking could be the idea way.
Is Walking for Weight Loss Possible?
Of course! It’s not a miracle approach, it’s basic maths - you have to burn more calories than you consume. Walking can of course help you achieve this, but you have to keep and eye on your food intake - you’d have to do a LOT of walking and training if your diet reads like the local takeaway menu!
Of course, for any weight loss and training help get in touch with the team at AdMac Fitness here.