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Why Walking is the Best Exercise for Long-Term Fat Loss?
Walking Increases Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis
Walking is the best exercise that no one appreciates. It can be a great supplemental activity in addition to strength training a few days a week. In this article, we will discuss the fitness benefits of walking, how much walking you should do per day, and the problems with using traditional cardiovascular exercise as a weight loss tool.
When you move more throughout the day you are promoting what’s known as non-exercise activity thermogenesis or NEAT. This can be defined as the additional calories we burn outside of purposeful exercise. In other words, you are exercising but you are not consciously aware that you are exercising. Increasing your NEAT levels can increase your total daily energy expenditure by up to 30%. This burns far more calories than a structured 1-hour gym workout.
- Parking further away in the grocery store parking lot
- Taking the stairs instead of the elevator to the office
- Walking around in circles while being on a business phone call
- Walking around while talking to a loved one on the phone
It may be surprising how small segments of random activity throughout the day can add to your total daily energy expenditure.
Walking Can Improve Muscle Recovery
When you are in a caloric deficit to lose fat, you are also in a recovery deficit. You are eating below your body’s energy demands. Therefore, you wouldn’t recover as optimally from resistance training sessions as well as individuals eating at maintenance or a surplus for lean bulking. High intensity cardio can significantly impair recovery and training performance, because of the added stress it puts on the muscular system. If you can’t increase or retain your strength in the gym, you will lose lean body mass during your cut.
Walking does not impact muscle recovery in a negative way. In fact, it’s been shown to improve recovery through the blood flow circulation that occurs as you walk. This helps reduce the soreness that may come after an intense resistance training workout.
Walking Can Reduce Appetite
Human studies have shown that walking can be an appetite suppressant. When you walk more, your hunger hormone ghrelin is reduced, and images of food are removed from your brain. This is beneficial for fat loss, because ghrelin is the antagonist hormone to leptin, which is our satiety hormone. If we can’t keep ghrelin under control, we can’t keep our caloric intake under control.
Walking can also be beneficial if you are on an intermittent fasting plan and struggle with hunger. A long walk in a fasted state can help prolong the fast and delay the time you have your first meal.
Walking Can Reduce Stress Levels
Walking has been shown to reduce cortisol, which is a stress hormone. This is important for weight loss or weight management. If your cortisol levels are too high, it can lead to water weight retention. When you walk for long periods of time, you release chemicals in your brain called endorphins. These chemicals stimulate relaxation and a positive mood.
How Much Walking Should You Do a Day?
According to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention, anything less than 5,000 steps per day is considered a sedentary lifestyle. The average American only walks about 3,000 to 4,000 steps a day. It is commonly promoted that people should strive for 10,000 steps daily to optimize health and fitness. Depending on the person, 10,000 steps a day can be a big time commitment. Between graduate school, work, family, friends, and strength training, many people might not have the time to get in 10,000 steps every day.
For most healthy adults, 45 minutes to 1-hour of walking daily is enough to promote fat loss. This equates to about 5,000 to 7,000 steps depending on the pace you are walking. The walk doesn’t necessarily have to be done in one long session. You can break the walk up into different sessions throughout the day if you want.
Some of the ways you can divide 1-hour of commutative walking a day include:
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- 20 minutes of walking in the morning, 20 minutes of walking in the afternoon, and 20 minutes of walking in the evening
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- 30 minutes of walking in the morning and 30 minutes of walking in afternoon
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- 20 minutes of walking in the morning and 40 minutes of walking in the afternoon
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- 40 minutes of walking in the morning and 20 minutes of walking in the afternoon.
Ideally, everyone should be walking outside in nature. It’s great for your mood and you also get Vitamin D production from the sun. If it happens to be raining that day, you can walk around in your house or apartment unit. If the temperature outside is below freezing or above 100 degrees, you can walk around in your house or apartment unit. If you don’t live in a safe neighborhood, you can find a safe park and get some steps in.
Why You Don’t Need Cardio to Lose Fat
There is nothing inherently wrong with doing cardio. It has a lot of health benefits. However, it is not ideal for long-term fat loss or weight loss. The foundation of your fat loss program should be your adherence to a calorie-reduced diet, strength-training, getting in the right amount of protein, and maintaining a high level of NEAT. Once you have these 4 things locked in, there is nothing more you can do to speed up fat loss.
The Problems with Most Forms Cardiovascular Exercise for Fat Loss
1. Many People don’t enjoy doing Cardio
Regardless of what form of daily physical activity you choose to achieve your goal body, the enjoyability factor must be there. If it takes willpower or mental discipline for you to run, jog, do CrossFit, high intensity interval training, or cardio machines at the gym, you will not be able to sustain the activity every day. If it’s not something you naturally enjoy doing and could see yourself doing for the rest of your life, your cardio program will be short lived. For these reasons, most people dislike cardio.
Walking does not take willpower and has a very high enjoyability factor. Most people with functional mobility can sustain a daily walk for the rest of their lives.
2. Cardio Can Interfere with Muscle Growth
High intensity cardio can comprise your ability to build or retain muscle during a fat loss phase. This is a problem because as you drop weight on the scale, you want to make sure that every pound of it is fat and not lean body mass. The last thing you want to do is lose 20 pounds on the scale and 10 pounds of that is muscle. High intensity cardio tends to put a lot of stress on the joints, which would impair your ability to recover from a weight training workout. If you can’t recover optimally, you can’t achieve progressive overload overtime.
Walking has been shown to be the best form of activity that doesn’t take from muscle tissue. It requires little to no recovery and would help your muscles recover from a resistance training session.
3. Cardio Can Significantly Increase Post Workout Hunger
Hunger management is very important on a fat loss program and too much cardio can negatively impact it. The body’s preferred fuel source for high intensity activity is stored carbohydrates in the form of muscle glycogen. If this storage gets too depleted, you will have desires to eat more than what is what necessary. This can lead to an over consumption of calories, which can lead to fat gain.
Walking may not burn as much calories as higher intense forms of cardio, but it doesn’t raise your appetite. The body’s preferred fuel source when walking is body fat. This ensures that every calorie expended through walking is fat and not muscle glycogen. Therefore, you can walk consistently throughout the day with a suppressed appetite.
Who Would Benefit from Doing Cardio?
The people that would benefit from cardio are sports athletes that can use the endurance or conditioning benefits that cardio provides. Unless you are training for a marathon, you don’t need to run to lose fat. Lean athletes train consistently for hours a day, so they can pretty much eat as much as they want.
Conclusion
Walking is better than most forms of cardio for long-term sustainable fat loss. It is the best routine activity for promoting NEAT. It doesn’t take willpower or discipline to walk. It doesn’t elevate your appetite or affect your muscle recovery. Walking can reduce your stress hormone and you can do it constantly throughout the day. Cardio is great for heart health and sports performance, but not fat loss. All we are trying to do with fat loss is manage that calorie deficit. If you add more unnecessary stressors to the body, you will make eating at a caloric deficit very difficult for yourself