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Walking is a great form of cardiovascular exercise, but does walking every day really help you burn calories? This popular exercise can be done anywhere and almost any time of day, and research shows it can do wonders for your waistline while keeping your heart healthy. However, if this is your only form of exercise, you’re probably wondering if walking every day is enough to stay in shape. It may be so. However, the answer is that it depends on several important factors.
Is Walking Every Day Enough Exercise?
Jordan Fernandez, CPT from Coach Academy, sums it up. “Whether a daily walk is enough exercise depends entirely on your goals, current fitness level, life stage and many other factors. If walking is your only form of exercise and your goal is to continually improve your fitness, you will need to increase your fitness by power climbing, covering longer distances, or increasing your walking speed.
Applied Modern Health
If your goal is to maintain aerobic fitness and stick to the recommended weekly guidelines, starting an exercise routine is enough if you are sure to increase your speed and heart rate for 30 to 60 minutes every day. However, if you want to build strength and muscle, you probably won’t be able to do it just by walking.
The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommend that adults do at least 150 to 300 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise or 75 to 150 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic exercise each week. However, the guidelines also recommend doing muscle-strengthening activities at least two days a week.
According to Domenico Angelino, MS, CSCS, FNS, CPT of Trainer Academy, walking can help you burn unwanted body fat.
“It doesn’t work more or less than other methods because in the end you burn calories,” he explained. “But it can help you burn more calories than you normally would. If you add an extra 15 minutes of walking a few times a week, you will reach your fat loss goals much faster.
Is Walking Or Running Better For Weight Loss?
The good thing about walking is that it can easily be incorporated into other well-integrated exercise programs without increasing fatigue.
“If you walk regularly at a brisk pace, you’ll find that climbing more stairs is easier on your body,” Angelino told us. “This effect will be better if you always go up hills because you will be working your muscles in a way similar to climbing stairs. For example, you will engage your glutes more evenly than when walking on a flat surface.
To help make your walking workout the best it can be, Angelino shares some expert tips.
“This will activate more muscle fibers, increase mobility, burn more calories and improve cardiorespiratory fitness,” Angelino explains. “This is beneficial for many reasons. If you want, you can also use this as a resume. When you’re ready to run, you can use an incline or stairs as a transition step from walking on a flat surface.”
Is Walking Good Exercise?
Exercising with a friend makes exercise more enjoyable and motivates you to do it.
“If you have a friend who wants to spend time with you, you can plan a trip together,” suggested Angelino. “This allows you to turn exercise into something completely different: an enjoyable recreational activity. Traveling seems to have less impact on life if you do it to achieve another goal, such as [spending] time with a friend.”
When it comes to your walking style, remember to keep a brisk pace to feel comfortable. It’s all about finding that “sweet spot”.
“It’s easy to fall into the trap of going free,” Angelino said. “The faster you walk, the more calories you’ll burn and the more health and fitness benefits you’ll get. However, it is important to be careful. If you walk too fast, you may [feel] tired, [making it] difficult to be motivated to walk more in the future.”
How Many Days A Week You Should Work Out For Muscle, Weight Loss
“It’s easy to ignore the importance of water when you’re traveling because it doesn’t have much impact on the body,” explained Angelino. “However, staying naturally hydrated can stretch your leg. If for any reason you feel physically uncomfortable while walking, you don’t want to prolong that feeling.”
Alexa is the associate editor of Mind + Body at Eat This, Not That!, overseeing the M+B channel and bringing readers topics related to fitness, health and self-care. Learn more about Alexa
Copyright 2025 Galvanized Media. All rights reserved. Eat This Not That is part of the Dotdash Meredith publishing family. You know you need to be active, but you avoid exercise because you think it should be hard and sweaty. Fortunately, walking for exercise can offer many of the same benefits as vigorous exercise, meaning there are no more excuses. Walking every day is more manageable than spending hours in the gym and is easier on the joints. But is walking enough to stay healthy?
Walking can be a great way to stay healthy. If you start walking every day, your health will be much better. Here are some powerful benefits of walking 30 minutes a day:
Why We Should Exercise
So you are sure. Time to get back to your daily walking routine. But how long and how often should you go? It depends on what you want to achieve. To reduce health risks such as heart disease, exercise at a moderate level for 30 minutes at least four days a week. Fortunately, this doesn’t mean you have to get on the treadmill and sit on it for 30 minutes. Researchers have found that the total amount of time spent exercising each day is important, even if the 30 minutes is split into 10 minutes throughout the day. Walking is the perfect way to exercise this part. If you live close enough, take a short walk to work. Instead of driving, walk to your friend’s house. These small steps will add up.
One of the biggest mistakes when we think of walking as exercise is that we tend to think that walking is easy. To get the benefits of traveling, you have to make an effort to do it. Don’t take a leisurely trip to a place where you can stop to chat with the neighbors. You have to move at a fast pace. The goal is to walk at least three and a half kilometers per hour. This means setting the treadmill to 3.5 if you’re walking around the house, or aiming to count the maximum number of steps if you’re wearing a pedometer.
When you’re ready to start walking, here are some things you can do to make sure it’s “enough” exercise.
Whether you’re taking an evening walk around your neighborhood with your family or exercising on your own, walking can be a great, low-impact activity. Remember that the exercise program you can follow will be more effective than the best exercise program available. For many people this means walking. If you have any questions or concerns, talk to your doctor before starting an exercise program.
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