Walking is not effective for Fat Loss! Higher Intensity Is!

 Obesity is on the rise, not only is the adult population becoming more obese, but the children population as well.  What is the major cause? Inactivity and diet.

With all this inactivity and obesity on the rise, many doctors and fitness experts are recommending walking for fat loss. Some will even say that walking is the best exercise for fat loss. I am strongly against this and I will explain why.

 Walking is not effective for fat loss, if your main goal is fat loss, and all you are doing is walking, you could be missing the boat! Do not misunderstand me; I’m not saying walking is not beneficial. What I am saying is if your primary goal is fat loss then there are much better choices that will give you more effective workouts of burning fat and also achieving better results. The main benefits of walking, are increased blood flow, better recovery, and a strengthen immune system. There are many reasons why walking is not the best exercise for fat loss and here are a few:

1)      Walking burns minimal calories

The lower the intensity of an exercise the less calories it burns it a given amount of time. For example you would burn many more calories biking at a higher intensity than you would over 45 minutes of easy strolling.

2)      Walking does not do much for your metabolism

Another disadvantage to walking is when you exercise at a low intensity it only has a small effect on your metabolism, your metabolism (the rate in which your body burns through food) might stay elevated for 60-90 minutes after he walk. In turn high intensity cardio can increase your metabolism for up 4-24 hrs, if your doing cardio in morning this will stoke your metabolism for the rest of the day!

3)      Walking does not deplete your muscle glycogen stores

Unfortunately walking does not deplete your bodies’ muscle glycogen stores (stored energy). When you deplete these stores you need to replace them with food and this food is used for recovery and stored in the muscles. If you do not deplete these glycogen stores, later day if you have a meal it has a very high chance as being stored as body fat.

 So why is so many doctors and fitness experts recommending walking for fat loss? One big but sad reason is people do not want to hear that actually have to work hard to see results, so some activity is better than none. Which I do agree with some activity IS better than none, but if you are going to spend the time to exercise, you can use your time much more wisely and get a much better workout with and high intensity workout. The body does burn more fat for fuel when exercising at an easier pace. Most of us have seen on some of the cardio machines in our health clubs that there is a “fat burning zone” this zone is usually lets you exercise at a very easy pace. What you need to realize is the energy expended is low that even though its mostly fat it is so minimal you would have to do this exercise for hour on hours to see any fat loss, and doing this much aerobic activity can compromise muscle.

 Performing high intensity cardio/aerobic activity is much more effective at burning excess stored body fat. There have been several studies that have been done to prove this to be true. One study they compared a group of people who did moderate aerobic activity for 45 minutes for a given exercise 4 times a week for 6 weeks, and second group who performed the same exercise for 15 minutes at a high intensity 4 times a week for 6 weeks. They did before and after health assessments, which included body fat analysis, and they found that the group that did high intensity lost 9 times as much body fat!

Have you ever looked at a marathon walker, and runner, a sprinter? Their body compositions are completely different. The marathon runner is almost sickly thin, carries very little muscle and more body fat, because of hours and hours of overtraining and low intensity exercise and his muscle has been used for energy. If you look at a sprinter he carries much more muscle at a lot less fat. He spends his time doing short, but high intensity runs, which keep his body fat low and maintains his muscle.

 So what should you be your main goals if you want to shed those extra pounds   of fat?

 1) Do intense cardio aerobic 2-4 times a week

 2) Maintain blood sugar levels to minimize storing of new fat

         3) Maintain lean tissue through appropriate nutrition.

 I know some of you are thinking, I cannot do high intense cardio/aerobics because I have a bad knee or back. Well there is no need to worry because the intensity is based on your fitness level. For example if you’re currently walking…doing a fast walk up and down hills might be high intensity for you. If your currently doing the elliptical for 45 minutes maybe its time to do it for 15 minutes but at a much harder pace. So don’t feel you have to start running, just slowly try to increase the intensity of your workouts and decreasing the time. You have the choice of either working harder or longer, long term working out harder will give you better results

Simple ways to increase the intensity of your workouts:

1) Increase your speed

2) Use incline or hills

3) Perform intervals

4)  Increase resistance

Some exercises are better suited for others, but the key is to increase the intensity of the exercise you prefer this will make the exercise much more productive.

Just be careful as with any changes to your program, just because high intensity workouts burn more fat, it doesn’t me I suggest doing it everyday, this can lead to overtraining and possible injury, and worse case scenario muscle breakdown.