The amount of weight loss you can expect from spending 20 minutes on a treadmill varies greatly from person to person. Factors such as body weight, intensity level and exercise frequency all influence the amount of energy you use during your workout. Energy expenditure affects the amount of calories burned within this timeframe. It takes a deficit of 3,500 calories to lose a pound of fat, so results are fairly limited.
Weight
Your current weight has a direct effect on the amount of energy it takes to move your body. Even on a treadmill, you're using a certain amount of energy based on pounds. Someone weighing 125 lbs. burns an average of 4 calories per minute walking at a pace of 3.5 miles per hour, whereas someone weighing 155 lbs. burns almost 5 calories per minute walking at the same pace, indicates Harvard Medical School. This translates into a caloric burn of 80 calories and 100 calories, respectively. You're looking at a weight loss of 1 lb. every 6 weeks at 125 lbs. and 1 lb. every 5 weeks at 155 lbs, by doing this seven days a week.
Walking
Increasing the pace of your stride can help you burn more calories, since it ramps up the intensity of your workout, and thereby expends more energy. If the pace of the stride increased to 4.5 mph, someone weighing 155 lbs. now burns just over 6 calories per minute, according to Harvard Medical School. After 20 minutes on the treadmill, you can expect to burn about 124 calories. When done each day, this translates into a weight loss of 1 lb. in a month's time.
Running
As soon as you crank up the level to a run, you're burning a lot more calories per minute. At 155 lbs., you can burn 10 calories per minute by running at a pace of 5 mph, which is roughly a 12-minute mile, notes Harvard Medical School. After 20 minutes, you've burned 200 calories. Now, you're looking at a weight loss of 1 lb. every 17 days. Increasing the pace to 6 mph, however, causes you to burn almost 250 calories in 20 minutes. That's a weight loss of 1 lb. every 14 days.
Diet
As you can probably tell, calories burned aren't that high for spending 20 minutes on a treadmill, especially when you keep your pace at a leisurely walk. While it's essential to get at least 150 minutes of exercise each week, you may want to look at changing your diet to help increase weight loss. Cutting calories from your diet can often better generate the deficit needed to lose the weight.
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