I am sceptical of people who claim to loose weight from just "walking", i.e. without some other form of life-style change.
You can loose weight if you do "serious" walking - power walking or nordic walking (the real thing).
Sounds like fun! In the interests of science, I will volunteer to test out this hypothesis!
oh wait, the thread title was WALKING off the weight, sorry, I acccidentally read an 'n' instead of the 'L' in there.
Already been done...
High aerobic activity, like running, burns sugar.
Longer, low-intensity activity, like brisk walking or easy cycling, burns fat.
Your body converts carbohydrates to sugar, and then converts unused sugar to fat.
If you eat a lot of carbs, then you need to burn the sugar with high aerobic activity to prevent it becoming fat.
If you don't eat the carbs in the first place, then a good brisk walk every day is plenty sufficient to burn away fat.
So, eat pasta, bread, breakfast cereal, pastries ==> go running
or, don't eat that stuff ==> go walking
That said, your body will benefit from strong muscles - It's the best protection against injury. It can be as simple as some press-ups and pull-ups every 2nd day.
Thanks for the info.
Isn't it also true that muscle can simply burn calories during rest, too? So if you have a high % of muscle you tend to burn more calories just by sitting there than if you have a higher % of fat? Or am I confusing that with something else?
Brown vs. white adipose (fat) tissue?
I think that's true too - or at least I know I heard/read that before and from my own observations my body certainly fits in with that theory too!
I don't think you can really lose weight through "ordinary" walking. By that I mean the normal strolling / ambling along pace that you do when you're out sight seeing or shopping. I've done a ton of that in my life (shopping I mean!) and not lost weight.
For me it was a combination of dieting - with a calorie target of 1500 and cutting some carbs (especially in the evening) and aerobics 3 to 4 times a week, 40mins a time, that did the trick. A year later and I put back on maybe 1 kilo so I'm pretty pleased with that - these days I'm just doing the exercise part and not actively dieting although still watch what I eat and probably overall eat less and healthier than I did before.
I also think that finding something you like to do and that fits in your schedule when you're a busy new mum is as important as what you actually do exercise wise. I found that I really love to do boxing-aerobics because it's fun to punch and kick the heck out of thin air when you've spent all day in the office or at home with a whiney kid - it's a great release! So I actually look forward to my exercise days, whereas before I always found it a bit of a chore - doing it because I felt I had to as I was fat was not really giving me enough incentive!
By the way - doesn't sex burn lots of calories?
I've been on a bit of a fitness drive the last few weeks. When I got back from my Berlin trip in mid-May, I was over 113kg. Since then I've been to the gym 3-4 times a week. I do 45' interval training on a cross-trainer, and once or twice a week I follow that up with a high intensity Switching circuit (weight circuit training, interspersed with cycling machine). If I don't go to the gym, I try to do a 45'- 1hr bike ride. I take sweeteners in my coffee instead of sugar and try to avoid big meals in the evenings (the odd takeaway does sneak in there now and again, though). I've reduced my carbs and fat intake and have cut down on the alcohol (just a teeny bit, honest). I am now down to less than ~109kg and aim to shed 2-3kg more before our hols at the end of July.
Even I'd 'av ya in a fight...
Oops
Edited for righteous justice.
Bring it on now
If you give us your height we can even have a chortle about your BMI...
I would just share how i lost the 40 lbs i gained (i was depressed!) with my first baby in more or less 1 year. When i wasnt ready to exercise yet i stuck with soups (fish,veggies,salt,water) for very early dinner for a few months. Then my sister and a friend started doing belly dancing exercise at home everyday for 30 minutes so i joined them. Not my type of activity but it worked alot.
A very nice although could be painful exercise also is squatting while carrying your baby in your arms. I did alot of it to get rid of "thunder thighs" and when i got bored of it i decided to scrub our wooden floors using this...Im sure these exist only in 3rd world countries but it worked really well for me and our floors were always shiny!
At 6'3", it puts me in the "slightly chunky" category, I think.
Most be awesome for arms!
After just reading the "43% of British men" thread, I rather misread the title of this thread.