Can Walking Help You Get Thin?

Walking can help you get thin by helping you to burn calories. While running and other high-intensity aerobic exercises will help you burn calories and get thin at a quicker rate, walking regularly will also burn around 200 calories an hour. In addition to walking, proper diet also will help slim your waistline.
  1. Low-Impact Exercise

    • If you are overweight and out of shape, chances are high-impact exercises will put a lot of pressure on your joints and ligaments. While high-intensity exercises are something you can work up to, walking can help you get thin by burning calories without putting a lot of impact on your joints. This will reduce your risk of sustaining an injury, keeping you on your feet for longer and helping you to burn more calories.

    Speed Walking

    • If you are looking to increase the number of calories you are burning per hour, simply increase the speed with which you walk. According to The Mayo Clinic, increasing your speed from 2 miles per hour to 3 1/2 will help you burn nearly an additional 100 calories per hour. As you increase your speed, it is important to maintain good form, posture and balance while you are performing your walking exercise.

    Endurance

    • While walking does not burn many calories per hour, it is possible to perform for long periods of time if you improve your endurance. Boosting your walking endurance will allow you to extend your exercises to a point where you are burning a large amount of calories. As this endurance builds, you will be able to increase the amount of calories you burn off of your body. In addition, improving your endurance will benefit your heart as well as your other organs.

    Warm Up

    • In order to help you avoid injury while walking, it is important that you implement a regular warmup routine, designed to help you stretch out your muscles and ligaments. Performing leg, arm and torso stretches will help you reduce the risk of pulling a muscle while walking. In addition, beginning your walking routine with five minutes of extremely slow walking will allow your body to warm up and get into the rhythm of the exercise.

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