Can you lose weight by walking 5 miles a day?

How much weight can you lose by walking 5 miles a day? – It takes 20 steps to burn 1 calorie. Therefore walking 10,000 steps (5 miles) you will burn 500 calories. Research tells us that roughly 3,500 calories equates to about 1 pound of fat. So if you burn 500 calories by walking 5 miles a day, you may be able to lose around 1 pound per week.

How long does it take the average man to walk 5 miles?

So, how long does it usually take to walk 5 miles? The average time it takes to walk five miles is around 1 hour and 40 minutes. That’s based on the British Heart Foundation’s estimate that the average person walks roughly 20 minutes per mile on natural terrain.

Is 5 miles a lot to walk everyday?

Benefits of Walking 5 Miles a Day – Walking 5 miles a day is an impressive achievement while still being a feasible exercise goal for many people, even if you’ve been inactive for some time. It’s an especially doable training volume if you start small and build up gradually, or split your daily walks into two 2-3 mile walks throughout the day.

Reducing blood pressure

Strengthening the heart and lungs

Improving aerobic capacity ( VO2 max )

Decreasing stress and anxiety

Improving blood sugar regulation

Decreasing LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and increasing HDL (“good”) cholesterol

Improving mood, confidence, and self-esteem

Decreasing joint pain

Strengthening your legs

Improving cognitive function and working memory

Reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, certain cancers, and the risk of premature all-cause mortality

Remember, you don’t have to go from zero to walking 5 miles a day every day. Slowly increase the distance you walk every day, or just focus on accumulating a total of 10,000 steps per day or roughly 5 miles. Stick with it! Your body and mind will love it. If you are looking for other fun and exciting challenges to take on, check out our long list of Marathon Handbook fitness challenges here !

How many is 5 miles walking?

How long does it take to walk 5 miles? – Walking offers health benefits because it helps increase bone strength, improve cardiovascular fitness, and reduce excess body fat. Plus, those who exercise regularly will also enjoy a boost in muscle power, stamina, and overall fitness.

1. If you’re walking at a moderate intensity, you should be able to walk about 1,000 steps in ten minutes.
2. Since 5 miles is the rough equivalent of about 11,575 steps, you should expect to walk for just about 120 minutes.
3. For a customized calculator based on your height see how long does it take to walk a mile,

Some fitness regimes ask for participants to complete 10,000 steps per day as a benchmark goal. With some strategic fitness-oriented decisions, you can achieve that goal without committing to 2 hours of walking at once. For example, in addition to a half-hour walking workout, you can also add to your step total by:

Skipping the elevator and taking the stairsWalking to and from work or the storeTaking your dog out for a walkTake a coffee or lunch break on the go and stretch your legs

Does walking 5 miles burn 500 calories?

How many calories do you burn from 10,000 steps? – Any estimation of how many calories you burn from an exercise like walking or running depends on how heavy you are. On average, heavier people use more energy to move than lighter people. Most rough estimates revolve around 100 calories burned per mile for a 180-pound person.

• How many miles are 10,000 steps? On average, 10,000 steps are going to come out to be roughly 5 miles.
• So assuming you weigh 180 pounds, then yes, by simple mathematics, 100 calories x 5 miles equals 500 calories.
• Over a week, that becomes 3,500 calories.
• But if you are lighter or heavier, you will burn less/more calories while taking the same number of steps or walking the same distance,

If you were 120-pounds, in that same mile you would only burn 60 calories. Calculate that over a week and that only becomes 2,100 calories, meaning that you are 1,400 calories short of reaching that 3,500 calorie goal.

Does walking 5 miles burn belly fat?

Walking may help you burn extra calories and develop lean muscle. Walking or performing exercise regularly may reduce belly fat and provide other health benefits. If you want to stay fit and healthy, it’s important to exercise regularly, This is because being physically fit can reduce your risk for developing health conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer ( 1, 2, 3 ).

In addition to helping you live a longer and healthier life, exercise can also be beneficial in helping to manage your weight ( 4 ). Fortunately, walking is a great form of physical activity that’s free, low risk, and accessible to most people ( 5 ). In fact, walking is not just good for you — it’s one of the easiest forms of exercise to incorporate into your day-to-day life.

This article explores how walking more often can help you lose weight and belly fat.

How long does 10 000 steps take?

What does 10,000 steps look like? – Ten thousand steps equates to about eight kilometres, or an hour and 40 minutes walking, depending on your stride length and walking speed. But that doesn’t mean you have to do it all in one walk. You will naturally accumulate steps through your day-to-day activities, but to reach the 10,000-step goal, you will likely need to do a 30-minute walk (or the equivalent in other exercise) as well.

How far can a man walk in 30 minutes?

How Far Is Walking 30 Minutes a Day? – Depending on how fast you walk, walking 30 minutes a day is roughly equivalent to walking 1.5-2 miles (2.5-3.5 kilometers). One study of 997 middle-aged walkers (aged 45 years old) found that the average walking speeds were 1.30 m/s for usual walking gait and 1.99 m/s for maximum gait.

How far can a man walk in 10 minutes?

By Trust for Public Land Published February 25, 2016 What can you get done in 10 minutes? Maybe a few quick chores, like folding the laundry or tidying up in the garage. You could read a chapter of that book you’ve been meaning to finish or—let’s be honest—get to the bottom of your Facebook feed. But what The Trust for Public Land wants to know is: could you walk to the park ? The best-case scenario: green space right out the front door. Photo Credit: Tegra Stone Nuess Even if you love getting outside, you know there’s a big difference between a park down the street and one across town. If a trip to the park means waiting for the bus—or packing the family into the car and sitting in traffic—all those other options start to sound more appealing.

But having green space in the neighborhood opens up possibilities: a quick jog before work, a picnic lunch break, or even sending older kids out to play on their own after school. For park planners, that convenience factor matters. Easy access to green space contributes to the quality of life that’s key to cities attracting and keeping residents and businesses.

Plus, it’s a public health issue: research has shown that people who regularly use parks get more and better exercise than people who don’t. A park close by can improve the well-being of everyone from a child managing ADHD to a senior recovering from hip surgery. We think every kid should have a park just a hop, skip, and a jump away. Photo credit: Jenna Stamm So how close is close enough? Most large cities—70 of the biggest 100, by our last count—set a standard by distance; of those, 61 percent define “close” as within a half-mile.

In our experience building parks around the country, we’ve found that makes sense—so long as we’re talking a half-mile on public roads and pathways. (A great park a hundred yards away doesn’t do you much good if those hundred yards cross private property or a busy freeway.) Though walking speeds vary, the Department of Transportation agrees that most people can walk a half-mile in about 10 minutes.

At The Trust for Public Land, we believe everyone should be able to reach a park in that amount of time—no matter what kind of neighborhood you live in. That’s why we’re helping cities prioritize creating and improving parks in the places that need them most. Get More Stories Like These Donate to become a member, and you’ll receive a subscription to Land&People magazine, our biannual publication featuring exclusive, inspiring stories about our work connecting everyone to the outdoors. Donate & Subscribe

Does walking 5 miles build muscle?

Walking does not build big, bulky muscles, but it does build some muscle. Some people avoid using the incline on the treadmill or walking hills outdoors in fear of building leg muscles that will make their legs appear bigger. This isn’t likely, as even higher-intensity walking is still aerobic exercise.

How much walking is 10,000 steps a day?

Walking 10,000 steps per day, which equates to walking about 5 miles, has been a benchmark health goal for a while. (Interesting fact: The number originated as part of a marketing campaign for an early step counter leading up to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, and has become the adopted benchmark of daily step counts.) The average American gets far less than this—logging between 3,000 to 4,000 steps each day —and there’s some evidence that upping your daily strides can have some surprising benefits,

Does walking tone your legs?

The Benefits of Walking – Walking wards off heart disease, brings up the heart rate, lowers blood pressure and strengthens the heart. Post-menopausal women who walk just one to two miles a day can lower their blood pressure by nearly 11 points in 24 weeks.

• Women who walk 30 minutes a day can reduce their risk of stroke by 20%, and by 40% when they stepped up the pace, according to researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.
• Walking can stop the loss of bone mass for those with osteoporosis, according to Michael A.
• Schwartz, MD, of Plancher Orthopedics & Sports Medicine in New York.

In fact, one study of post-menopausal women found that 30 minutes of walking each day reduced their risk of hip fractures by 40%. Research finds that people who exercise regularly in their fifties and sixties are 35% less likely to die over the next eight years than their non-walking counterparts.

• That number shoots up to 45% less likely for those who have underlying health conditions.
• Walking releases natural pain­killing endorphins to the body – one of the emotional benefits of exercise.
• A California State University, Long Beach, study showed that the more steps people took during the day, the better their moods were.

A brisk 30-minute walk burns 200 calories. Over time, calories burned can lead to pounds dropped. Walking tones your leg and abdominal muscles – and even arm muscles if you pump them as you walk. This increases your range of motion, shifting the pressure and weight from your joints to your muscles.

Studies found that women, ages 50 to 75, who took one-hour morning walks, were more likely to relieve insomnia than women who didn’t walk The majority of joint cartilage has no direct blood supply. It gets its nutrition from joint fluid that circulates as we move. Movement and compression from walking “squishes” the cartilage, bringing oxygen and nutrients into the area.

When walking, your breathing rate increases, causing oxygen to travel faster through bloodstream, helping to eliminate waste products and improve your energy level and the ability to heal. A study of 6,000 women, ages 65 and older, performed by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, found that age-related memory decline was lower in those who walked more.

The women walking 2.5 miles per day had a 17% decline in memory, as opposed to a 25% decline in women who walked less than a half-mile per week. A study from the University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville found that men between the ages of 71 and 93 who walked more than a quarter of a mile per day had half the incidence of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease than those who walked less.

Aerobic walking and resistance exercise programs may reduce the incidence of disability in the activities of daily living for people who are older than 65 and have symptomatic OA, a study published in the Journal of Clinical Outcomes Management found.

Is walking 5 miles 10000 steps?

How many steps in a mile? 2,000 steps An average person has a stride length of approximately 2.1 to 2.5 feet. That means that it takes over 2,000 steps to walk one mile and 10,000 steps would be almost 5 miles. A sedentary person may only average 1,000 to 3,000 steps a day.

1. For these people adding steps has many health benefits.
2. Wearing a pedometer or fitness tracker is an easy way to track your steps each day.
3. Start by wearing the pedometer every day for one week.
4. Put it on when you get up in the morning and wear it until bedtime.
5. Record your daily steps in a log or notebook.

By the end of the week you will know your average daily steps. You might be surprised how many, or how few, steps you get in each day. A reasonable goal is to increase average daily steps each week by 500 per day until you can easily average 10,000 per day.

1 Source: 10000 Steps – The Walking Site www.thewalkingsite.com/10000steps.html

How many calories is 10,000 steps?

How many calories do 10,000 steps burn? – Most people burn 30-40 calories per 1,000 steps they walk, meaning they’ll burn 300 to 400 calories by walking 10,000 steps, Hirai says. However, this is just an estimate. Each step you take burns calories, but the exact amount is highly individualized.

“Calorie burn rate can be quite variable,” he says. Your weight, stride length, and fitness level will affect your calorie burn, as will your pace and the incline of the area you’re walking in, he says. To get a more personal assessment of calorie burn, Hirai recommends using a measurement called metabolic equivalent, or METs,

One MET is the energy it takes to sit still. Walking briskly at just over 3 miles an hour is about 3.5 METs, while walking uphill is about 6 METs, Hirai said. Therefore, to calculate the calories you burn with METs, use the following equation: Energy expenditure (in kcal/min) = 0.0175 x MET x weight (in kg) To calculate your weight in kilograms, divide your weight in pounds by 2.2.

• So, a person who weighs 150 pounds (68 kilograms) and walks on a flat surface at a pace of 3 mph, using about 3.5 METs, would burn approximately 4 calories per minute.
• At 3 miles per hour, it would take around 100 minutes to walk about 10,000 steps (approximately 5 miles), so they would burn roughly 400 calories.

Many people today use apps or smartwatches to calculate their steps and calorie burn, but Hirai says it’s good to double-check those numbers with the equation above to get a more accurate picture. “An important thing to remember is not to rely solely on these calculators, as you can over or underestimate the calories you consume or burn,” he says.

How do I train to walk 5 miles?

#1: Build Your Endurance – The single best way to walk 5 miles faster than you are currently walking is to walk more and improve your fitness. Walking 5 miles is ultimately an endurance exercise, because even the fastest walkers are out there walking for over an hour.

How many calories is 1 kg?

The “real” facts about burning body fat Exercise Science The “real” facts about burning body fat In this age of information and so-called Insta Fitness “Experts” there is so much B.S. around when it comes to burning body fat. While methods and ideas change all the time we thought we’d take the moral high-ground and give you the facts.

Please understand, this info is not the latest “get skinny fast” gimmick, just the facts that haven’t changed in decades. So, let’s give you some REAL facts about fat burning to help you on your journey. There are 7,700kcals (kcal=calorie) worth of energy in 1kg of fat. That means in order to burn 1kg of fat, you must have a calorie deficit of 7,700.

Considering the average daily intake can be anywhere from 1,800-2,400kcals, it takes some time to burn that fat. People’s biggest mistake is not allowing the time for changes to take place within the body. Health and fitness is a lifestyle, not a temporary quick fix.

Creating too big a calorie deficit to try accelerate the process will lead to injury or illness. Here’s some quick maths to help you understand the fat loss process: John, aged 35, burns 2,400kcals a day without adding exercise. His main goal is to lose weight. He does three reboots a week and burns on average 700kcals per session.

He chooses a healthy 500 calorie daily deficit to attain his goals. So on his non work out days, John consumes 1,900kcal and on the days he does reboot, consumes 2,500kcals (2,400 + 700 = 3,100 – 500 = 2,500). John sticks to this religiously for 6 weeks.

How much fat has he lost? Nearly 3 kilos of fat. Go John! Now this isn’t counting weight he will lose from fluid retention by tiding up his diet. Yes, he cut back on alcohol and consumed cleaner food in this period too, in order to hit his daily goals (The types of calories you put in to your body affect body composition too, but that’s a whole other conversation).

Remember you can’t out train a bad diet! Math for those who like this stuff: 500 daily deficit x 7 days a week = 3,500 x 6 weeks =21,000/7,700kcals in 1kg of fat = 2.75kg. Now I hear some of you say ‘3 kilos? That’s not much for 6 weeks of work’ But it’s not just three kilos, it’s three kilos of pure FAT.

• As mentioned above, eating cleaner food will have other effects on your body, such as decreasing bloatedness, cleaner digestive system and increase in energy.
• Meaning total weight loss could in fact be more.
• Have a look at this picture of 2kg of fat vs 2kg of muscle and tell me 3kg fat loss isn’t much.

For anyone having trouble getting their head around the above information, talk to one of our skilled trainers here at One Fitness and they’ll happily help you on your weight loss journey. : The “real” facts about burning body fat

Is 20,000 steps a day good?

#1: Consider a Weighted Vest – If you are walking 20000 steps a day, you have clearly developed excellent aerobic fitness, strong legs, strong lungs, and a strong heart. To make your walking workouts more challenging, you can wear a weighted vest for part or all of the walk, gradually increasing the percentage of the time that you wear the vest.

Is 10,000 steps a day enough?

It’s great to have fitness goals, but 10,000 steps a day aren’t quite enough to keep you healthy. Mercey Livingston is a health and wellness writer and certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach. She’s written about fitness and wellness for Well+Good, Women’s Health, Business Insider, and Prevention.com among others.

Can walking give you abs?

In a word, no. ‘ Walking alone is not a direct or intense enough form of exercise to specifically target and develop visible abs,’ Hope explains.

Does walking tone your butt?

Does walking tone your but and build muscle? – If you’re aiming to get your 10k a day steps in with hopes of making your butt bigger, we have some bad news for you. According to Los Angeles-based certified personal trainer, Danny Saltos, the short answer is no.

Walking alone won’t help build your booty muscles, despite the rising trends you may have seen on social media. Walking is absolutely a great form of exercise, and one that doesn’t get a ton of love because it’s so chill and easy compared to other forms of exercise, Saltos says. But, rather than building butt muscles, walking can actually make your bum a bit smaller.

Here’s why: “Walking is a low-impact movement that offers a great way to burn calories,” Saltos explains. “When you burn more calories than you consume, you lose fat. The body doesn’t discriminate the areas from where fat is lost, and one place where there is typically ample amounts of it is on our rear end.

How many miles a day should I walk to lose weight?

How Many Calories Can You Burn Walking? – “Calorie burn from walking depends on several factors, including age, weight, sex, walking pace and difficulty of your walking course,” says Alex Davis, co-creator of Ryan and Alex Duo Life, “Generally, 1 mile (or roughly 2,000 steps) walked equates to 80 to 100 calories.” There are 3,500 calories in 1 pound.

“This means to lose 1 pound, you’ll need to walk roughly 35 miles or 70,000 steps. Over the course of a week, this means targeting 10,000 steps a day,” says Davis. At this rate, you could lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks. The more you weigh, the more calories you will burn. According to calculations by the American Council on Exercise, a 185-pound person walking at a brisk pace of 3.5 miles per hour will burn 318 calories in one hour, and a 155-pound person walking at 3.5 mph will burn 267 calories in an hour.

The faster you walk, the more calories you will burn, so pick up the pace to lose 10 pounds in a shorter amount of time. This is how many calories a 155-pound person burns walking for one hour at different paces, according to the American Council on Exercise physical activity calculator : 2 mph (a stroll): 140 calories 3 mph (moderate pace): 232 calories 3.5 mph (brisk pace): 267 calories 4 mph (very brisk): 351 calories 5 mph (fast pace): 632 calories Getty Images / urbazon

How much weight can I lose in a month if I walk 5 miles a day?

Can I Lose Weight By Walking 5 Miles A Day? – Losing weight depends on your diet as much as exercise. Think of your walks as an aid to weight loss. By walking 5 miles a day you’re increasing your Daily Energy Expenditure, This will help you lose weight provided you don’t replace the calorie burn from walking by eating more,

• If you treat walking 5 miles a day as a green light to eat more calories – then no you won’t lose weight.
• You’ll get fitter and enjoy all the benefits of walking – but you’ll still be carrying extra weight.
• Successful weight loss from walking 5 miles a day comes from combining exercise with a healthy diet,

On the plus side – it’s much easier to lose weight and keep it off if you combine better eating habits with following an exercise program. Physical activity will maintain and improve your muscle mass – that’s better for daily calorie burn and will help your weight loss to be mainly body fat.

How much weight can I lose walking 3 miles a day 5 days a week?

For all of the methods we have that are geared towards helping people lose weight, good old-fashioned walking is still one of the best things to add onto a weight loss plan or workout program. While walking is very healthy for the body and it is absolutely helpful as supplemental exercise if you’re trying to drop weight or body fat, it does not cover all of the bases.

However, if you combine a walking habit with a smart workout program, you’re going to drastically increase the health benefits and also see a lot better results, a lot faster. For another walking-specific workout, check out our new FB Plus routine, Dynamic Walking Workout – Light Cardio Workout for Circulation and Mobility,

If you’re trying to lose weight, you still need to challenge your cardiovascular endurance (for health and calorie burn). Keep in mind that this is relative to your own fitness level and it doesn’t have to be intimidating. Listen to your body, and move at a pace that is challenging to you specifically.

1. The other piece of the puzzle is strength/resistance training, which is one of the best ways to lose extra weight and keep it off – it also has a very long list of health benefits that walking doesn’t quite cover.
2. If you are trying to lose weight through walking, one of the best things that you can do to boost the chances of success for your efforts is to use a pedometer.

Pedometers are extremely cheap and can go a long ways in helping you determine how many miles you walk in a day, and how many more you might need to walk in order to lose weight. In order to find out how many miles you need to cover to drop extra pounds, you need to find out how many you are currently covering.

This way, you will know by how much you need to increase your steps, or distance each day in order to be able to see a difference in the number on the scale. For example; if you currently take 8,000 steps with your existing routine and daily habits and are maintaining weight, the number of steps that you need to increase your daily distance to lose weight is simply a matter of mathematics; increasing your mileage according to the number of calories you want to burn.

Too rainy for a walk? Try these at home cardio workout videos:

Easy: Low Impact Cardio Workout for Beginners – Recovery Cardio Workout with no Jumping Intermediate: Fat Burning Cardio Workout – 37 Minute Fitness Blender Cardio Workout at Home Hard: HIIT Cardio and Abs Workout – Insane At Home Fat Burner – Interval Cardio Training and Core

How many steps do I need to take to lose weight? The average person has a stride that is 2.5 feet long. Using this stride length, there are roughly 2112 steps in the average person’s mile. Each mile that a person walks burns roughly 100 calories. If a person was to commit to walking 4,500 extra steps per day, or roughly 3 extra miles, they would be burning an extra 300 calories a day (at least).

Burning 300 calories each day leads to a weekly deficit of 2100 calories. After a month, that’s roughly 9000 cal burned, which equates to approximately 2.6 pounds lost. Keep it up for a year and you’re looking at over 31 pounds lost! Accumulating those three extra miles a day could be as simple as making small changes such as parking further from the store that you’re visiting, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, or pacing while you’re talking on the phone.

Even if you were to do the 3 miles in one fell swoop, it would only take an extra 45 minutes out of your day. How many miles a day do YOU need to walk to lose weight? The number of miles per day that you need to walk to lose weight really depends on your starting point.

1. As mentioned above, it’s important to find out what your starting point is in terms of your activity level, the number of calories you’re currently burning in the day, and the distance that you are covering on average.
2. Once you have an idea of what these figures are for your personal habits and activities, you’ll get a good idea of how many additional steps you need to take each day to see results.

Remember, it’s all a simple math equation. Here are the basic numbers; 1 Mile = 2112 steps 1 Mile walked = 100 calories burned 1 Pound = 3500 calories 2 Pound weight loss per week = 7000 cal, or a 500 cal deficit per day 1 Pound weight loss per week just by walking = 5 extra miles walked per day – or 10,560 extra steps (in addition to the distance that you are currently covering while maintaining weight) 1 Pound weight loss per week with diet changes and walking combined = 2.5 extra miles walked per day (5280 extra steps), and 250 calories less consumed per day, for a total daily caloric deficit of 500 calories.

• Again: If you are trying to lose weight, make sure that you are also doing strength training – people who are trying to lose weight often think that strength training will make them bulky or that they should wait until they lose the extra weight before they “begin to tone”.
• In fact, the longer you avoid strength training, the longer you are putting off easier weight loss and maintenance.

Strength training is absolutely essential to losing weight, keeping a fast metabolism and a healthy body, and it can be modified to challenge anyone, from beginner to advanced. Strength training is healthy for people ages 3-110; as long as the training is smart (good form is emphasized and an appropriately challenging weight is selected), the health benefits are bountiful.

Fitness Blender’s 4 Week Low Impact Fat Loss Program – 40 Minutes or Less FB Fit – 8 Week Fat Loss Program to Lose Weight, Build Lean Muscle & Tone Up Fitness Blender’s 4 Week Bodyweight-Only Fat Loss Program FB30 – Round 2 – 8 Week Fat Loss Program For Busy People

Here are some great strength training routines to choose from that require only simple dumbbells (if you don’t have equipment, you can always get creative with weights):

10 Minute Workout for Butt and Thighs Total Body Strength Training and Core Workout for Beginners – Low Impact Workout at Home ​ Total Body Strength Training with Dumbbells – Challenging Dynamic Superset Workout HIIT Cardio + Lower Body Strength – High & Low Impact Modifications Provided (Free 5 Day Workout Challenge) Tank Top Arms Workout – Best Upper Body Workout for Toned Arms, Shoulders & Upper Back

Also make sure that you cool down and stretch when you finish each walk. Here’s one of our favorite free stretching workout videos; Goodbye Stress Calming Stretching Workout – Full Body Yoga Infused Stretching Routine​ Walking is an excellent and healthy way to get fit and/or lose weight.

Will walking 5 miles a day tone my legs?

The Benefits of Walking – Walking wards off heart disease, brings up the heart rate, lowers blood pressure and strengthens the heart. Post-menopausal women who walk just one to two miles a day can lower their blood pressure by nearly 11 points in 24 weeks.

Women who walk 30 minutes a day can reduce their risk of stroke by 20%, and by 40% when they stepped up the pace, according to researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. Walking can stop the loss of bone mass for those with osteoporosis, according to Michael A. Schwartz, MD, of Plancher Orthopedics & Sports Medicine in New York.

In fact, one study of post-menopausal women found that 30 minutes of walking each day reduced their risk of hip fractures by 40%. Research finds that people who exercise regularly in their fifties and sixties are 35% less likely to die over the next eight years than their non-walking counterparts.

That number shoots up to 45% less likely for those who have underlying health conditions. Walking releases natural pain­killing endorphins to the body – one of the emotional benefits of exercise. A California State University, Long Beach, study showed that the more steps people took during the day, the better their moods were.

A brisk 30-minute walk burns 200 calories. Over time, calories burned can lead to pounds dropped. Walking tones your leg and abdominal muscles – and even arm muscles if you pump them as you walk. This increases your range of motion, shifting the pressure and weight from your joints to your muscles.

Studies found that women, ages 50 to 75, who took one-hour morning walks, were more likely to relieve insomnia than women who didn’t walk The majority of joint cartilage has no direct blood supply. It gets its nutrition from joint fluid that circulates as we move. Movement and compression from walking “squishes” the cartilage, bringing oxygen and nutrients into the area.

When walking, your breathing rate increases, causing oxygen to travel faster through bloodstream, helping to eliminate waste products and improve your energy level and the ability to heal. A study of 6,000 women, ages 65 and older, performed by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, found that age-related memory decline was lower in those who walked more.

• The women walking 2.5 miles per day had a 17% decline in memory, as opposed to a 25% decline in women who walked less than a half-mile per week.
• A study from the University of Virginia Health System in Charlottesville found that men between the ages of 71 and 93 who walked more than a quarter of a mile per day had half the incidence of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease than those who walked less.

Aerobic walking and resistance exercise programs may reduce the incidence of disability in the activities of daily living for people who are older than 65 and have symptomatic OA, a study published in the Journal of Clinical Outcomes Management found.