Walking for Weight Loss: 10 Steps for Success

Use an Activity Tracker

Use an activity tracker, fitness monitor, or walking app to know how much you move throughout the day. Knowing how many steps you walk daily is critical if weight loss is your goal.

Check your steps to stay on target and look for opportunities for more steps. As you achieve more steps consistently, increase your target goal by another 2,000 steps daily.

Remember a 10,000-steps-per-day target is a guideline. Some on their feet all day for work may notice that their starting step count is near, at, or even above 10,000. Those people could increase by 2,000 steps as needed to see a result.

Overcome Excuses

There are a lot of reasons for skipping your walk or workout on any given day. Keep an exercise log or use an app so you can be honest with yourself about how much exercise you get, and then review it at the end of each week.

Excuses like being "too tired" or "too busy" may seem like no big deal—and it's normal to feel this way—but shifting your mindset to overcome these smaller reasons could benefit you mentally and physically. While illness or physical limitations are reasons for taking a rest day, smaller excuses can be quickly overcome with changed thinking.

Focus on your strengths—what you accomplished—and cut yourself slack if you didn't reach your goal. Reevaluate and try again next week.

Estimate Calories Burned

Brisk walking is an excellent calorie-burning and health-promoting activity. But you can't necessarily rely on your activity monitor or treadmill display for reliable calorie-burn figures. This calculator gives another estimate that factors in your weight.

All these tools can provide information, but they are estimates. If you are walking consistently but not meeting your weight-management goals, boost your intensity to burn more calories and consider your nutrition.

Work Hard and Breathe Hard

You will breathe harder than usual while walking briskly. It's a good sign you are getting into the fat-burning heart rate zone.

If you're wondering how much fat you will lose by brisk walking daily, warm up at a leisurely pace and walk for 30 to 60 minutes fast enough that you can't carry on a conversation. You'll experience a higher calorie burn when performing moderate to vigorous activity.

Vary Your Workouts

Switch up your routine if your walks are always on the same route—at the same pace—or if you follow the same treadmill workout. Fast, easy, interval, long slow days—have their benefits. Change up your walking workouts to prevent boredom and keep you feeling challenged.

Be Mindful of Eating Habits

Walking is an excellent exercise that can help you lose weight if weight loss is your goal, but you should consider your eating habits. If you are eating healthy foods without seeing results, use a food journal or meet with a registered dietitian.

Food journaling, or recording everything you eat for several days, can help you identify patterns that may inhibit your goals. Some fitness monitors include or link to a food-logging app that helps analyze your nutrition.

You can use this recipe analysis tool to find the calories and nutrients in your favorite recipes. Consider your caloric intake against the estimated number of calories you are taking in. To see weight loss, you will need a caloric deficit.

Motivate Yourself With Non-Food Rewards

Use non-food rewards, such as a new pair of walking shorts, a pedicure, or a new audiobook as motivation to complete your weekly (or monthly) walking goals. You might fall into social walking habits that encourage pre- or post-walk coffee or baked goods—especially if you walk with a partner or group. Hitting a coffee shop or bar as a post-walk reward can make it harder to reach your weight-loss goals.

Consider portion size and frequency of food rewards if weight loss is your goal. You may be satisfied sharing a cookie or swapping your cappuccino for a drip coffee with milk.

Swap High-Calorie Beverages for Water

High-calorie beverages such as sodas, fruit juices, coffees, and sports drinks provide little nutritional value and may pose as a barrier to your weight-management goals. Swapping these drinks for water is a simple solution.

You need water during walking workouts and electrolyte replacement if you are sweating and walking for more than 60 minutes. But you don't need to drink extra calories.

Drinking your calories may lead to consuming more calories than you would otherwise because these drinks are not filling.

Incorporate Hills and Stairs Into Your Walks

Adding bursts of intensity to your walking workout can help build your fitness and elevate your heart rate. Hills and stairs are the easiest way to add intensity to your workout.

Add a detour that specifically includes a hill climb or climbing stairs. Switch up treadmill workouts with hill intervals.

Add Daily Activity

If you get in your walking workouts most days of the week, but sit for most of the day at work or school, you may still have a hard time getting enough activity to lose weight and improve your health.

Find ways to break up sitting time with bouts of standing, pacing, or walking. This is one way to get to 10,000 steps per day, and every bit of movement and standing burns more calories than sitting still. This can add up to burning hundreds more calories per day.