[seperalem]

Well it falls into the category of "if it feels easy, its probably not doing anything"

For the purposes of the people who have asked the questions about how much they are getting out of walking.


A medium pace walk, 20 minute mile which is a good clip for a walk, just under a power walk but faster than a regular stroll, burns 230 calories for 45 minutes. 230 calories is a very small amount of calories, to put it in perspective, it is 0.06 of a pound of fat.

Also its not strenous enough to cause your body to increase its metabolism in order to ramp up its energy production. Unfortunately its just the cold hard facts that you gotta sweat to burn.

In this as in all things, its about breaking the mental barrier. People convince themselves that their body can't "handle" a quick and large increase in the exercise they do, so they must work into it "gradually." That myth is one of my least favorite, every time I hear it I grit my teeth. Numerous medical journals and publications have studied the adaptability of the body from a sedentary state to a highly active state, and the conclusions are that the longest it takes a adult body, even up to late middle age and old age is 3 weeks at the outside to completely adapt to a high level workout. 1 hour of strenous cardiovascular exercise or anaerobic weight training 5 days a week will make you hurt like the dickens for the first couple weeks, but you're not DAMAGING anything and you're training your body to deal with it.

The people that slowly creep into their exercising are doing two things that will hinder them. Number 1, they're burning their motivation and discipline by not training themselves to push through the mental barrier and to see the results they could be getting, and Number 2, they're setting themselves up to CONSTANTLY hurt every time they up their program a bit. If you jump in with both feet, you're going to hurt for two weeks or so, and then get acclimatized. If you keep ramping up slowly, every time you make a change to your exercise routine its going to hurt again,which is going to be a negative reinforcement.

I kinda feel bad, but its the truth. I know some people have asked how much walking helps. Sorry, it doesn't