Other benefits that a daily walking habit may provide as people age include reduced risk of dementia, stroke, and heart disease, and strengthened muscles and bones, according to other researchers cited in the Eat This, Not That!
For example, regular brisk walking can help you: Maintain a healthy weight and lose body fat. Prevent or manage various conditions, including heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, cancer and type 2 diabetes. Improve cardiovascular fitness.
Many experts agree that the recommended steps per day for seniors is 7,000-10,000. People who live with a disability or chronic illness can still benefit from an active lifestyle, and depending on individual abilities may strive for 5,500 steps per day.
After 3-4 days of walking: you will notice the “better fit” or more room in your clothes! After 7 days of walking: real changes are happening! You have used body fat as energy (fat burning!) Muscles feel more toned!
About walking
Just 30 minutes every day can increase cardiovascular fitness, strengthen bones, reduce excess body fat, and boost muscle power and endurance. It can also reduce your risk of developing conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and some cancers.
Jackson Fyfe, sports science lecturer at Deakin University, agrees that walking is not guaranteed to transform your body shape. “Walking may contribute to reducing body fat, but this will also depend on the individual's dietary habits."
Walking tones your leg and abdominal muscles – and even arm muscles if you pump them as you walk. This increases your range of motion, shifting the pressure and weight from your joints to your muscles.
"There is a strong relationship between intensity of exercise and fat-burning hormones," says Weltman. "So if you're exercising at a pace considered to be hard, you're likely to release more of these hormones." The best part: When women walk, deep abdominal fat is the first to go.
Walking every day is one of the most effective low-impact ways to mobilize fat and positively alter body composition. Daily walking increases metabolism by burning extra calories and by preventing muscle loss, which is particularly important as we get older.
Walking is good for health but walking faster is even better, study finds. How fast you walk could be just as important for your health as how many steps you take each day, a new study suggests.
The key take-home message is to exercise daily, and if mid-afternoon works well for you, then that is the optimal time to work out. Get in your activity whenever you can – just keep it consistent! Regular exercise helps seniors stay independent longer.
Walking, like all forms of exercise, can reduce stress and anxiety, improve mood and overall feelings of wellbeing, and can improve cognitive function. Walking can increase your focus, energy, executive functioning, and may even improve your memory and creativity.
Since you're most sensitive to natural sunlight within one hour of waking, morning walks are [usually best],” she adds. However, just because a morning walk gives you the most nighttime snoozing perks doesn't mean that you shouldn't take a walk if you can't do it in the morning.
While you can't spot-reduce fat, walking can help reduce overall fat (including belly fat), which, despite being one of the most dangerous types of fat, is also one of the easiest to lose. The key, though, is staying consistent and walking in the right heart rate zone to maximize calorie and fat burn.
There are 3,500 calories in 1 pound. "This means to lose 1 pound, you'll need to walk roughly 35 miles or 70,000 steps. Over the course of a week, this means targeting 10,000 steps a day," says Davis. At this rate, you could lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks.
Coming to the point, you will first lose “hard fat” (visceral fat) that surrounds your organs like liver, kidneys and later, you will burn soft fat (belly fat, thigh fat, back fat, etc.). Women accumulate fat cells around their belly area, hips, thighs and these areas are usually the last from.
According to data gathered in a 2019 scientific study, it takes the average person 15-22 minutes to walk one mile. Remember that the weather, your age, the terrain you're walking on, and how fast you're walking are all factors that can impact your mile time.
Studies show walking is one of the best ways to shed belly fat, in less time than you think. Researchers reviewed 40 years of studies on exercise and belly fat and found that just 2 1/2 hours of brisk walking a week--about 20 minutes a day--can shrink your belly by about 1 inch in 4 weeks.
In terms of how the type of walking you need to do to lose weight, a brisk pace is recommended. Walking for 30-90 minutes several days each week will help you to lose weight. Walking at a brisk walking pace for 30 minutes typically results in a distance walked of 1.5-2 miles or 3,000-4,500 steps.
2,000 steps
An average person has a stride length of approximately 2.1 to 2.5 feet. That means that it takes over 2,000 steps to walk one mile and 10,000 steps would be almost 5 miles.
“Walking is just as good as any other form of exercise,” says University Hospitals pediatric sports medicine specialist Laura Goldberg, MD. “The guidelines are 150 minutes of moderate activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity a week. It doesn't really matter how you get that. You can walk, you can swim, you can run.”