Is Walking Good for Reducing Weight?

There are many ways to reduce weight, most of which require some kind of exercise. A convenient exercise that can fit into a daily schedule is walking. It is low impact and can help trim pounds easily.

Weight Loss

• Walking for exercise will help burn calories over time. Taking a one-hour walk, for example, will burn between 300 and 500 calories. At this rate, that equals about a pound every 10 days, which equates to just over 30 pounds lost per year.

Addditional Benefits

• While losing weight is a big benefit of walking, there are others advantages. These include lower resting heart rates, body mass indexes and waist measurements. Walking also lowers blood pressure and reduces the risk of heart disease and breast cancer.

Considerations

• While walking helps reduce weight, it does so only to a certain point. After losing weight, your body burns fewer calories doing the same amount of walking, simply because there is less weight to move. Increasing the walking distance will help some, but switching to a higher impact activity, such as running, will help you continue to lose weight.