Is walking good exercise?
Short answer: Yes!
Research shows that even a small increase in the number of steps you take each day can significantly improve your overall health. Here are some of the top reasons why walking is great exercise.
1. Cardiovascular health
Walking increases your heart rate and increases your heart rate. In fact, according to research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, it may be just as beneficial as running in supporting cardiovascular health.
2. Brain function
Physical activity has great benefits for cognitive health. Studies in stroke patients have also shown that moderate-intensity walking increases the body’s levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, a protein that supports brain health.
3. Mood
Take steps to clear your head. In a small study of young people, a quick 10-minute walk significantly improved mood. This study suggests that walking may act as a type of active meditation.
4. Bone strength
Walking is a weight-bearing activity that puts stress not only on your bones, but also on the muscles, tendons, and ligaments that connect them to make them more stable. In fact, research has shown that the number of steps you take each day, as well as your body weight and the amount of force you apply to the ground with each step, can more accurately predict bone density in your femur (thigh bone) compared to traditionally used measurements.
5. Weight loss
Does walking help you lose weight? Definitely! Your overall calorie consumption will increase and when combined with a healthy eating plan, you can lose weight.
It is also very effective in improving blood sugar control. Walking may be particularly beneficial for maintaining healthy levels of abdominal fat (also known as abdominal fat or visceral fat) because it lowers blood sugar levels and, as a result, increases insulin spikes. This type of fat is sensitive to elevated blood sugar levels and can increase due to insulin resistance.
Does walking help you lose weight?
As long as walking is part of an overall lifestyle that creates a calorie deficit, that is, as long as you consistently expend more energy per day than you expend in your diet (all food and drink), you will lose weight.
The exact number of calories burned while walking varies. A 180-pound person burns about 100 calories per mile at an average walking speed on level ground, while a 120-pound person burns about 65 calories per mile at the same speed.
What impact does it have on reaching your weight loss goals? In one study, when people followed a low-calorie diet and walked at a moderate pace for 2 hours and 30 minutes a week, they lost an average of 19.4 pounds over 12 weeks.
People who dieted alone lost 15.4 pounds over the same period. Walkers also lost significantly more weight from fat, as opposed to other sources such as muscle.
Walking also helps you manage the calories you burn. One study looked at 19 participants who walked briskly for an hour and found that they did not feel hungry or had an increase in the hunger hormone ghrelin.
Is walking 30 minutes a day enough exercise?
Walking is a low-to-moderate-intensity aerobic or aerobic exercise. The U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines recommend that adults do at least 2.5 to 5 hours of moderate-intensity aerobic exercise per week for overall health.
This equates to walking for 30 minutes five times a week up to a minimum of 60 minutes five times a week. At this pace and frequency, you can cover 10 to 20 miles of walking in a week.
If your schedule is a little tight and it’s hard to find time to exercise, the guidelines also state that increasing the intensity of your aerobic exercise will reduce the total amount of time you need to spend on aerobic exercise for your overall health.
They also recommend doing muscle-strengthening exercises at least twice a week. To incorporate strength training into your walking, consider wearing ankle weights, holding hand weights, walking uphill, or placing a treadmill on an incline.
You can also intersperse bodyweight exercises like squats, bench incline push-ups, and walks with lunges for added health benefits.
Walking is probably one of the easiest and most accessible ways to get around. But is walking good exercise? Can you really lose weight just by walking?
After all, these days the most popular workouts seem to be all about going hard, cranking up the intensity, and being more or less reduced to a shivering puddle of sweat, which isn’t really the MO of walking.
that’s ok! No matter your fitness level or exercise experience, you can reap great benefits by adding walking to your daily routine.