How Many Steps A Day Can Help You Lose Weight?

Ever met a person who’s completely satisfied with their weight? You probably haven’t, even if you made an effort to search long and hard. That’s just how dissatisfied everyone is!

While some want to pile on a few extra pounds, the majority want to lose all the extra ones they’ve accumulated. And if you belong to the latter category, you’ve definitely tried crazy exercises and fad diets! But they don’t really work, do they? And most of them end up taking a toll on you – the aches and pains of exercising, the food cravings from diets… Oh, and the gym bill. How could we forget that!

Well, as always, there’s a simple way out this time too. And this way is both cheap and sans the side effects of intense exercising and diets. Plus, you won’t even feel that you’re indulging in a weight loss activity while you’re at it! The solution? Walking!

Long hailed as one of the best workouts, walking is one of the easiest ones too. And it doesn’t cost a thing. In fact, it can help you save fuel money.

But the question is – how much do you need to walk a day to lose weight? Or in other words, how many steps should you take daily to get to the weight you want to? Let’s find out!

Walk Your Way To Fitness

When you walk, you burn a significant number of calories, which is what aids in weight loss. However, how many calories you burn when you take a stroll is dependent upon two factors, which are:

• Your current weight.
• And the area you cover.

This will be easier to explain with the help of exact figures. So, for example, if you walk for an hour daily, you will end up burning roughly 300 to 400 calories, depending upon your speed (1). Which means if you walk, say, around 3.5 miles an hour, you’d burn 300 calories. But if you walk at the rate of 4 miles an hour, the result would be 400 calories burnt.

To break it down further, you need to walk approximately 2000 steps to burn 100 calories, which is equal to walking for about a mile. So, let’s say if your target is to lose a pound of weight, you will have to burn 3,500 calories, which means you need to walk 70,000 steps! Now, that might sound like a lot, but it’s doable if you break it down. In fact, there’s the ‘Step Diet’ that you can follow to achieve your weight loss target (2).

That said, the best way to go about it is to set the goal of losing 1 pound per week via walking. That means burning about 500 calories each day by walking at the rate of 5 miles an hour. To do that, you will have to walk 10,000 steps each day. Now, that’s something you can do, right? Yes, you can! All you have to do is change some of your habits.

Tips To Help You Walk More Each Day

• Let your car stay in the garage and walk your way to work or school. That is if it’s not too far off. If it is, what you can do is get down two or three stops earlier and walk the remainder to your destination.
• Hitting the supermarket? Don’t take the bus. Chances are you have a supermarket close enough to your house, so just walk it whenever you need to go grocery shopping. Try walking your way back too, as the weight you carry from the store can help burn more calories.
• Resist the urge to take the easy way out by using the elevator and climb the stairs instead. Brisk climbing up or down the stairs can even help you tone your legs and aid in achieving the desired ‘per day steps count.’

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• Park your car further off than your destination and walk towards it whenever you need it. Since every step you take counts, the more you walk, the better off you’ll be.
• Make early morning walks a part of your routine. Or evening, depending on when you get the time. This might seem difficult at first, but once you get into the habit of it, you won’t be able to go a day without putting your running shoes on.

When you first start walking though, start small with just about 15 to 20 minutes a day and gradually increase your steps and duration. This will help your body adjust to this new routine. Sooner or later, you’ll be able to walk up to 30 to 60 minutes a day without breaking a sweat! In fact, once walking becomes a part of your daily routine, you won’t even realize you’re making an effort to lose weight. So, go take the steps and watch the number on that weighing scale change!