Does brisk walking make the tummy any smaller?

Question

I like walking but is walking alone enough to tone up, especially the tummy?

Also how long per day is good to walk for results?

Answer 1

It will certainly be good for you, but sn't enough for the abs on it's own. Here are some thoughts from my 360 Blog of September 10:

Don't target more than about 2 lbs per week. If you try to lose faster, your body will go into "starvation mode" and get very stingy about burning calories while at the same time very efficient about storing any calories that you do provide. And it will make you feel awful.

There is no site specific way of losing fat... the old myth about working your abs to burn belly fat isn't true. To get rid of love handles, you need to lose overall fat. That happens with exercise and watching your diet. More on that below.

The most effective way to lose fat is aerobic exercise in the "moderate" fat-burning range, ideally first thing in the morning before you eat. When you wake your body is ready to burn fat and your levels of growth hormone are highest at that time. Later in the day it can take up to 30 minutes just to put your body into a fat-burning mode.

Another overlooked way to burn fat is by lifting weights. Skeletal muscle has very high caloric needs... almost twice that of adipose (fat) tissue. Put on a little muscle and you will burn calories all day even at rest. Be aware that skeletal muscle weighs more, so with this approach you may see your weight increasing while your body fat is melting away. Not realizing this often stresses folks who think they should be losing weight as a measure of fitness. Forget the scale, look in the mirror and you will be happy.

To lose a pound of fat, you need to eliminate about 3500 calories. You can do this by burning more with exercise or by modifying your diet to reduce intake. If you do a Google search on say, "swimming calories" you will quickly find a website with tables of calories burned for a given exercise. You can use such lists to estimate how many calories you are burning up with your routine.

For diet, keep a diary for a couple of weeks counting calories, grams of protein, and grams of fat intake. It is easy with online sources of nutritional information (type the name of the food and calories into the Google search engine) and packaging labels. That will let you quickly figure out where the fat is coming from in your diet.

Fat gives you 9 calories per gram. So take the number of grams of fat, multiply by 9, then calculate what percentage the fat calories are of your total daily calories. Restricting the calories from fat to about 20% of your total intake is ideal for a maintenance diet... that isn't overly restrictive. Of note, you need some fat in your diet. For instance, the body uses fat to produce hormones. Once you have a picture of how to modify your diet, you can drop the diary and just go back to it occasionally if you are wanting to tweek things further.

There is a subset of questions that goes further and asks about "How to get a six-pack?" The answer is the same. Six-packs are 20% abdominal exercise and 80% diet. There is one caveat... abdominal muscles will form in the position that you exercise them, so be certain to pull them tightly toward your spine while doing crunches, etc. Also, during most lifting, the "core is active" which means that you should be stabilizing with contracted abs then too. Fail to do this and the abs will form, but bulging outward and the result is not attractive.

If you are trying to build muscle as a way to lose fat, then you may need to increase total calories and specifically your protein intake. I target about 0.8 g of protein per pound of body weight each day when actively building. That is far more protein than most people need in their diets.


Aloha

Answer 2

Many people think that they should do sit-up's or specific strength training exercises on the abdominal to trim the belly area when in fact, nothing could be further from the truth!

Have too much belly fat? don't know what to do? simple answer; cut calorie intake and increase walking, running & cardio!! Is that simple? not for some, understanding that this needs to be done for quite some time, (maybe for a full year) before you will remove enough (fat) around the abdominal to have them show and they give up in fustration and doing sit-up's adds to that fustration.

After the year of slow fat loss by walking/running etc. at that point doing sit-ups or specific exercises will make the muscles stronger (but larger) and together with the continued walking/jogging etc. will give them the definition of a six pack.

We ALL have a six pack, it's just too padded (lined with fat) too see it- you must first lose the belly fat to see it and sit-up's won't help that, (they actually make the abdominal muscles larger) and will give the effect of a thicker mid section if you do them before losing all the fat. Remember, you can not spot reduce fat, it will come off over time and all over your body and the last to go will be the place where the most has settled; the belly.

Part two of your question: Hard to say what your current fitness level is and weight etc. so that's a personal call. Many start out with 20 min a day, for three times a week and go from there.

Answer 3

Yes, although agree that if you are especially concerned about your tummy, a small set of specific exercises would be of greater benefit.
Walking at least 30 minutes a day; three days a week is the minimum for body toning. I would encourage more than that, if at all possible.

Answer 4

Yes, but when you walk you must stand up straight and hold your tummy in as much as you can to get the best effects. Maybe for about 30 mins per day.

Answer 5

I found that walking is really good for fat loss(i find jogging is even better) which helps to lose the tummy.I do sit ups and reverse sit ups for tone and muscle and that seems to work for me.I dont think that walking alone would tone the tummy but it depends on your shape and goals of how toned up you want to be.Its a good start though!!!

Answer 6

It's supposed to be the best exercise for all around conditioning. If you maintain that level of exercise and do not increase your food intake, you will eventually get results. There are other exercises that can achieve faster result but the answer to your question is yes.

Answer 7

No sit ups would tone that, exercise just keeps the weight off by burning the calories you have consumed (well, depending how much you've eaten and how long you exercise for) and keeps you healthy

Answer 8

You need to do specific exercises for the tummy !

Answer 9

yes walking does tone the abdo and its one of the best forms of excercise available, its free as well which always helps,
if you can manage some sit ups go for that as well
good luck

Answer 10

Yes.
If you avoid eating fatty & junk foods.
Be a Vegitarian.
You will wonder.
Note- It takes time the more you walk the better purchase a "PEDOMETER" burn 150 calories daily.