How much should I walk to lose weight?

Start With an Easy Pace to Warm-Up

First, you want to wake up your muscles and let them know you plan to be active for awhile. Walking at an easy warm-up pace for five to 10 minutes tells your muscles they can't just sit back and burn up the available sugars, they need to call on the fat reserves.

This is why you should not start off at a high speed. When you do that, your cells don't get the signal that this is a long-term activity.

So instead of pulling fat out of storage to burn as energy, they burn up sugars only.

Speed Up to a Determined Pace to Burn Fat

The speed to walk for optimal fat-burning is a "determined" pace, or a "brisk walking pace."

• At this rate, you should be breathing noticeably but able to carry on a conversation in full sentences.
  
• Heart rate target should be 60-70% of your maximum heart rate. Target Heart Rate Calculators will tell you that a person in good health can calculate their Target Heart Rate by subtracting your age from 220. So if your 40 years old subtracted from 220, your target heart rate would be 180 BPM. If you hold the target heart rate for more then 30 minutes your body will be burning fat to supply you with energy. 

• How should it feel? It should feel as intense as when you are walking fast because you are 10 minutes late for an important appointment. That is how Marilyn L. Bach describes it in her book ""Shapewalking."
•  
• Walk at this speed for 30 minutes at a time after your warm up to ensure you are dipping into your stored fat.
   
• If you aren't already able to walk for 45 minutes at a time, use the Beginners Walking Plan to build up to that duration. Walk at a slow pace for as long as you can and then rest few minutes until you regain some energy and then walk a little more. Your goal in time would be to walk normally for one hour. After that you can decide how much faster you can walk. Eventually you can be a regular Mall Walker.
   
• Raising your Metabolism

Good work, you've tricked your body into dipping into your fat stores for energy.

You are also building muscle and raising your basal metabolic rate so you are burning more calories all day long.

But What If I Can't Walk That Much?

Start with the Beginners Walking Plan, it will get you started the right way to build up to being able to walk for 30 minutes at the fat-burning pace. It also tells when to seek medical advice and how to avoid injury. You can search on the web "Beginner's Walking Plan" for good information.

Any amount of activity over your present level will help you achieve your weight loss goals, so go slow if that is what is comfortable.

But What If I Don't Have the Time to Walk for That Long?

If you just don't have enough free time in the day to spend 45 continuous minutes walking, then make the most of the time you have. Find the time to get in two to four 15 minute walks at a brisk pace every day. You will be burning calories and building your walking speed and ability and at least achieving the minimum recommended physical activity level for health.

Walking Faster and Faster

If you are already walking 20 miles total per week and want to get more results purely from walking, then you need to build speed as well as duration. You can use good arm motion and stride to speed up or learn the race walking technique used by athletes.