If you’re obese you might be wondering if fast walking every day will help with weight loss.
If you’re obese, then you need to know that a certain kind of fast walking will be very effective at helping you lose weight.
This kind of walking is not the kind that you do on the job inside a building, so forget that right off the bat.
Because if that kind of walking were effective for weight loss, you most likely would not be obese.
The walking that an obese individual does in a week, from shopping trips and errands, even if fast, also doesn’t count, because, again, if that kind of walking were great for weight loss, you’d know it after all this time.
The problem with shopping trips and on-the-job walking is that it’s often not predictable how much you’ll be doing, and there may not even be that much done every day.
Furthermore, distractions will always get in the way. Plus, if you wear dressy shoes to work, then for sure, the workplace should not be your location for fast walking for weight loss.
It’s okay to move fast to make a meeting, but fast walking for losing weight is a whole different animal.
Thus, the obese person’s best plan for weight loss should be one’s fastest walking — I mean your absolute fastest — that you can sustain for 30 to 60 seconds — every day.
Then go easily for 2-3 minutes, maybe four minutes, depending on how you feel. After this recovery phase, go fast again.
When I say go “fast” or your “fastest,” this does not mean a particular speed.
It means the fastest that YOU can walk. Thus, speed or how long it takes you to get from one spot to the next does not matter.
It’s about moving your body as quickly as possible for 30-60 seconds. If all you can do is lumber at what seems like a lethargic pace, then that’s the level you will be working at for your work phases.
If you must move extremely slowly for the recovery phase, then so be it, but what’s important is doing this every day.
Remember, this is NOT about miles per hour or how much distance you can cover in 30 seconds.
It’s about moving as quickly as you can for 30-60 seconds, then moving at a recovery pace for several minutes, then moving your best again.
Alternate for 20 minutes this way. Then you’re done. For best weight loss results, an obese person should do this every day.
Out of 20 minutes, you will have exerted yourself for a total of perhaps five minutes, if you do one-minute work phases with three-minute recovery phases. This is an example.
You may not be able to go your absolute fastest for 60 seconds; maybe for only 30 seconds.
But there may be times when you can’t move your fastest, but you can still walk pretty good, and thus you can sustain a challenging pace for 45 or 60 seconds.
The obese person should commit to this fast walking interval program every day.
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Walking this way will be far more effective than a sustained pace at a slow, comfortable speed.
If you are so obese that just 10 minutes of slow, sustained walking are all you can take, then that’s your starting point.
Do that every day, even twice a day. At some point you’ll be able to go for 15 minutes.
You’ll also notice that you need to go faster in order to get the same challenge. This means your fitness is improving.
But ultimately, interval training with fast walking alternating with easy paced movement, is the best way for obese people to lose weight.
As the obese person’s fitness improves, he or she can extend the time spent doing interval walking to up to 45 minutes.
