Many people understand that exercises like walking can help them lose weight. Find out how much you actually need to see results.
An important principle to keep in mind is that you have to use up more energy than is coming in from food to lose weight.
That means how much walking someone has to do for weight loss depends a lot on the details in other lifestyle areas like their diet.
With that in mind, there are still some rough estimations to help you get an idea of how much walking you will need.
A 185-pound (84 kg) person will have to walk around 559 minutes (or about 28 miles = 45.1 km) at 3.5 mph (= 5.6 kmh) to burn the number of calories in one pound (0.44 kg) of body fat.
Some of the benefits of walking are that you can adjust your speed, distance, slope, etc. to see more results. In reality, you could be able to see more weight loss results from less walking.
What influences whether you lose weight by walking
Something important to know is that while walking can help you lose weight, this will not always happen.
The reason for that is that losing weight requires you to make it so you burn more energy than is coming in from the things you eat.
That means your habits in other lifestyle areas like your diet will heavily influence whether you lose weight by walking and how much you need to do so.
In simpler words, walking may not help you lose weight if you have suboptimal habits in other areas. Similar principles apply to how long and how many miles you have to walk.
How much walking you should do to lose weight
At the same time, while the principles above still apply, you can also get some interesting estimations and fun walking stats by temporarily making a few assumptions.
Let’s say there are people of different body weights who are currently at a weight loss plateau. The only change these individuals will make is walking more.
In combination with how many calories walking burns and that one pound of body fat is about 3500 calories, you can make a few calculations.
The table below includes estimations for how much walking the people in this situation would have to do to lose about 1 pound (0.44 kg) of body fat.
It is worth mentioning that these are very rough estimations. Your actual results will likely vary due to differences in many details.
| Speed Weight Person | Walking (3 mph/4.8 kmh) | Walking (3.5 mph/5.6 kmh) | Walking (4 mph/6.4 kmh) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 125 Pounds (56 kg) | 1016 minutes = 51 miles | 827 minutes = 41 miles | 711 minutes = 36 miles |
| 155 Pounds (70 kg) | 819 minutes = 41 miles | 667 minutes = 33 miles | 573 minutes = 29 miles |
| 185 Pounds (84 kg) | 686 minutes = 34 miles | 559 minutes = 28 miles | 480 minutes = 24 miles |
| 215 Pounds (97 kg) | 591 minutes = 30 miles | 481 minutes = 24 miles | 413 minutes = 21 miles |
Example results walking 1 hour a day for a month
It is also possible that you just have a certain amount of time a day to walk more often and want to see how far this gets you in terms of weight loss results.
The same principles from above about the importance of other lifestyle areas still apply.
That aside, with the same conditions as above, a 185-pound (84 kg) person would be able to burn an extra 13,110 calories or about 3.75 pounds (1.64 kg) by walking 1 hour a day at 4 mph for a month (30 days).
One important thing to note is that as you lose more weight with walking, the same workouts will also start to burn fewer calories.
That means you will have to keep making positive changes in your lifestyle to keep seeing weight loss results.
These changes can be making your workouts harder by for example, walking with weights. Another option is turning to other areas like your nutrition.
