Doctors and health specialists agree that walking is an excellent way to lose weight: when you walk, your muscles burn calories by tapping into your body fat. Do you know how long you need to walk for sustainable weight loss?
To starting losing weight, you need to reach the fat-burning zone: 60 to 70% of your Maximum Heart Rate. In this zone, the majority of calories burned are fats, to make energy for your muscles.
To reach this zone and start burning calories, you have to walk at a brisk speed, between 5 and 8 kph.
• You will start breathing more heavily
• You will start sweating slightly
• You will feel your body working
• You should still be able to hold a conversation without getting out of breath
If you get out of breath, you are going too fast! Slow down and find the pace that suits you best.
To burn calories from your stored fat, you need to walk at this pace for at least 30 to 50 minutes, after a 10-minute warm-up at your regular pace.
It's true, a person weighing about 70kg will burn approximately 300 calories after 1 hour of fitness walking at 6km/h.
Your muscles develop, particularly your thighs and buttocks which will consume more calories, even when resting.
To lose weight it's important to walk 1 hour regularly; and you won't lose weight like you would on a diet. Muscles burn calories naturally. Thanks to your endurance workouts, they develop and consume even more. It's the virtuous circle triggered by fitness walking - which carries on if you stay motivated!
Note: muscles are heavier than fat, so your weight loss will not necessarily show on the scales as your muscles develop. This is why it is preferable to focus on the change in waist size, which you can record in your training log, rather than weight, as recommended by the sports physician, Charles Aisenberg.
