Walking can make you lose weight -- in fact, if you're overweight or obese, walking represents an easy, potentially fun activity that can improve your fitness while helping you shed weight. Walking may have other health benefits, reducing your risk of chronic conditions such as diabetes or heart disease. How fast you lose weight will depend on how far you walk, how often you walk and how hard you push yourself.
Weight Loss Speed
To lose weight quickly, you need to burn extra calories -- 3,500 calories per pound, according to Columbia University. Walking slowly burns fewer calories than walking fast. For example, if you can cover one mile in 17 minutes, you'll burn about one calorie for every pound you weigh, or 150 calories if you weigh 150 pounds. If you cover that same mile in 13 minutes, you'll burn closer to 190 calories if you weigh 150 pounds, making your weight loss about 25 percent faster.
Intensity
However, you might find it difficult to keep up a fast walking pace through an entire workout, or through several workouts spaced just one day apart, according to Columbia University. Therefore, you might burn a similar amount of calories -- but feel more comfortable -- if you cover the same distance at a slower pace. Either way, if you can burn 500 calories per day with a walking program, you can lose four pounds every month by walking.
Research
The University of Colorado at Boulder reports that walking at a more leisurely pace might actually help more with weight loss than more intense workouts if you're obese. Researchers studied how obese people walk, and concluded that they can burn more calories per mile of walking if they slow their pace to cover a mile every 30 minutes -- a much slower pace than normal walking speed. They also put significantly less pressure on their knees in the process, which could help to prevent injuries.
Considerations
Before you start a walking program, see your physician to make sure you're ready for the exercise involved. Once you've done that, you should start losing weight as soon as you start walking. However, if you don't think you're losing weight fast enough, consider cutting calories as well. If you reduce your calories by 500 each day, you can lose another pound per week in addition to the weight you're losing by walking, significantly accelerating your weight-loss program.
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