It seems really simple but yet so few actual attempt to walk just 30-60 minutes per day. Walking at a moderate pace for an estimated 5 days per week burns stored fat and can also build muscle to speed up your metabolism.

In fact just an hour per day is associated with cutting your risk of heart disease, breast cancer, colon cancer, diabetes and stroke. I think it’s about time that you get up a little earlier or schedule some time later in the day into your busy lifestyle.

If a pound of fat equals 3500 calories. To lose 1 pound a week you will need to expend 3500 more calories than you eat that week, whether through increased activity or decreased eating or both. Losing 1-2 pounds of fat a week is a sensible goal, and so you will want to use the combination of increased activity and eating less that will total 3500 calories for 7 days.

How You Burn Calories
Your weight x distance = energy used walking. Time does not matter as much as distance. If you speed up to walking a mile in 13 minutes or less, you will be burning more calories per mile.

But for most beginning walkers, it is best to increase the distance before working on speed. A simple rule of thumb is 100 calories per mile for a 180 pound person.

Note About the Calories Chart
You burn more calories per mile at very low speeds because you are basically stopping and starting with each step and your momentum isn’t helping to carry you along. Meanwhile, at very high walking speeds you are using more muscle groups with arm motion and with a race walking stride. The extra muscles burn up extra calories with each step. Running may burn more calories per mile as there is an up and down motion lifting your weight off the ground as well as moving it forward.