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Walking for Fat Loss?
by Jesse Cannone
http://www.guaranteed-weightloss.com/

With obesity and disease increasing dramatically, many
fitness experts are recommending walking for weight loss
and fitness. Some are even going so far as saying that
walking is the best way to burn fat and lose weight. I
strongly disagree with this and am going to show you why
walking is NOT effective at burning off body fat.

Yes, you read that correctly...

Walking is NOT effective at burning body fat and if your
goal is fat loss you might be wasting your time. I am not
saying that walking is not beneficial, I am saying that if
fat loss is the primary goal, there are far better choices
that will deliver far better results.

The primary benefits of walking are increased blood flow
and circulation, improved recovery, and a strengthened
immune system. There are several reasons why walking in not
the best choice when it comes to fat loss. Here are just a
few:

1. Walking does NOT burn a lot of calories

The lower the intensity of the activity or exercise the
smaller the number of calories burned per unit of time. For
example, you can burn more calories in 15 minutes of
bicycling at a high intensity level than you can in 45
minutes of easy walking.

2. Walking does NOT result in a large increase in metabolism

Another downside to walking is that because it's generally
low intensity it results in only a small increase in
metabolism that will only last approximately 1-2 hours
after the walk. On the other hand, metabolism increases are
larger and last longer (4-24 hrs or more) when you perform
high intensity cardio workouts.

3. Walking does NOT deplete muscle glycogen

Low intensity exercise like walking does not deplete muscle
glycogen levels and therefore, later that day if you have
excess calories they will likely be stored as body fat
whereas if you deplete the glycogen the excess calories
will primarily be stored in the muscles.

So why then do so many fitness and health experts recommend
walking for weight loss? One reason is that people don't
want to hear that they have to work hard so they figure
some activity is better than none. Another reason is that
the body burns more fat for fuel when exercising at an easy
pace, however, the total amount of energy used is so small
that you end up burning off little body fat. That's also
why when you choose the "fat burning" program on your
treadmill or bike it has you exercise at any easy level.
Yes, you're burning fat, but so little that you'd have to
exercise at that easy pace for hours and hours each day.

High intensity cardiovascular/aerobic exercise is much more
effective in burning off the excess body fat. In fact,
several studies have been done to prove this. In one study
they compared one group who did moderate level aerobics for
45 minutes with another group who performed high intensity
workouts for 15 minutes. They did before and after fitness
testing including body fat analysis and found that the
group who performed the high intensity aerobics lost nine
times as much body fat!

Want more proof?

Compare the bodies of a walker, marathon runner, and
sprinter. If you are not familiar with what a sprinters
body looks like, it is very muscular and has little body
fat while on the other hand the body of a walker will
likely have the opposite, little muscle and more fat. The
sprinter does little or no low intensity exercise and does
primarily short hard bursts of work while the marathoner
overtrains so much they burn off both the body fat and the
muscle and that's why they tend to look almost sickly thin.

So what should you do then if your main objective is to
shed those excess pounds of body fat?

Two things:

1. Perform some form of high intensity cardio 2-4 times per
week

2. Stabilize blood sugar to minimize the storage of new fat

I know some of you by now are saying "I can't do high
intensity exercise, I have a bad knee" and don't worry, I
have a solution for you. The good news is that high
intensity is all relative to you and your current fitness
level. For example, fast walking up and down hills may be
high intensity for you... it all depends. So don't think
that you have to start running or something like that. Just
slowly start to increase the intensity of your cardio
workouts while also maybe decreasing the time because you
can either work hard or you can work long.

Also, you can make almost any activity or exercise high
intensity.... here are a few examples:

increase your speed

use an incline or hills

increase resistance

perform intervals ( the most effective method)

Obviously, some exercises/activities or better suited than
others but the point is if you want to burn more fat and
make your workouts as productive as possible you need to
increase the intensity.

To learn more about high intensity cardiovascular exercise
please check out the following articles:

Forget the Fat Burn Zone - http://www.achieve-
fitness.com/forget.htm

In Search of the Ideal Aerobics Routine -
http://www.achieve-fitness.com/ideal.htm

Heart Rate Guidelines - http://www.achieve-
fitness.com/cardio.htm

Be sure to also check out my Burn Fat FAST! ebook and audio
program here: http://www.burn-fat-fast.com - it covers
everything from cardiovascular training to strength
training to nutrition and more.

As with any changes to your fitness program be careful and
don't over do it. Just because high intensity workouts burn
more fat, don't think that you'll get even better results
by doing it everyday - that will quickly lead to over-
training and a loss of muscle which will only make it even
harder to burn off the fat.

So if your primary goal is fat loss, don't waste your time
walking and instead focus on progressive, high intensity
cardio to maximize the effectiveness of your workouts.

Jesse Cannone is a certified personal trainer and author of
the best-selling fitness ebook, Burn Fat FAST. Be sure to
sign up for his free email course as it is full of powerful
weight loss and fitness tips that are guaranteed to help
you get the results you want. http://www.guaranteed-
weightloss.com

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