people who have successfully lost weight and kept it off. “Seventy-five to 80 percent of them are walkers,” he says.
Walking isn’t a miracle cure for obesity. A brisk 40- to 45-minute walk can burn about 300 calories, depending on how much you weigh. At that rate, a typical 150-pound person who walks every day could potentially lose a little more than a pound every two weeks.
“It won’t take a person from 350 pounds to 120 pounds,” Hill says. “People who are severely obese will need something more drastic to get to a healthy weight.” But if you’re looking to lose 10 to 20 pounds — or if you’re just hoping to hold steady — you should seriously consider putting one foot in front of the other.
And according to new research, you don’t have to be a marathon walker to drop a few pounds. In a government study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, women were asked to reduce their calorie intake and then were given exercise programs that primarily consisted of walking.
Some women were assigned strenuous workouts and some less strenuous. At the end of a year, women in