Before walking to lose weight, consider:

1. Your lifestyle- are you generally inactive (anywhere less than 8,000 steps daily);

2. How long you have been inactive;

3. Can you commit yourself to organising your life around walking for a time?

4. Can you ignore counter productive drives during this time?

Lifestyle

If you are active every day without adding specific walking to lose weight tasks then you may lose weight more easily by looking at other factors such as diet, but if you are with the majority and lead inactive lives of about 6,000 steps per day, then walking for weight loss will work for you.

How Long?

How much time it will take depends upon how many years of inactivity have deposited the fat into the muscles, then overlaid this with the fat under the skin. If you have just recently adopted a sedentary lifestyle through change of occupation or illness etc. going back to walking for weight loss should trim your body quickly. If you have many years of inactivity, initial losses could be huge as the body changes to cope with the sudden introduction of walking but overall trimming and weight loss will take longer while you build up lean strong muscles.

This personal trainer who decided to put on weight to understand how his overweight clients feel about their weight may not find it to be as helpful as if he understood the issues of long term overweight. His plan did not include inactivity but over eating meaning that by stopping excess eating or exercising more he will quickly return to his normal body weight.

Daily Life

Depending upon your need may be the time you will dedicate to walking on a daily basis. There are many people who walk hours daily for pleasure and the other benefits of walking regularly but when walking specifically as a weight loss program any amount of additional walking will contribute to the overall effect on weight loss. The more time devoted to the task he greater the result- say 1 hour daily for 2 weeks is very effective kick start, particularly combined with lowered calorie intake.

You need to fit regular walking into your schedule – twenty minutes can be made up of 2 ten minute walks morning and night. If someone is very inactive this will have a definite fat loss effect. A more active person needs to continually increase and vary the activity.

Someone like Madonna who with a personal trainer does a daily two to three hour exercise routine includes treadmill dancing, skipping and running backwards to continually challenge her body.

Be your own personal trainer. Make sure you are committed and encouraging, add in variety and intensity where necessary.

Focus

Make walking a priority. Make weight loss a priority. Don’t overcompensate for strenuous exercise by eating without restriction. Don’t pretend to do the exercise by not timing, measuring or counting what walking you have done today. Use a pedometer when walking outside or at a minimum time your walk, treadmills offer time and distance information and certain dvds such as Walk Away the Pounds offer a variety of walks by time and distance- one, two or three miles.

Be willing to find solutions if problems to your walking daily arise.

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