Is Walking Good Cardio? Benefits for Fat Loss & Health

The fact of the matter is that by the time you’re finished lifting heavy weights, you seldom feel like engaging in anything as demanding as high intensity interval training. In fact, you really don’t even feel like engaging in movement that feels challenging in any way. Simply stated, if you have to pick up your rate of speed to a level exceeding what you would typically reach while casually strolling through your local mall, you’re not interested.

So now that we’ve established that you refuse to move in any manner that’s going to cause you to work up a sweat, now we need to determine if that’s actually going to help you achieve your fitness goals. With limited methods of training that fit these demands, you hop on the treadmill and set it for a speed of two miles per hour, hoping to accomplish… something.

This method of training may be tolerable, but is it actually beneficial? How effective is walking as a form of cardio, and are you deluding yourself into thinking you can get in shape without pushing yourself with cardio of a higher intensity level?

Define “Cardio”

First of all, it would be helpful to define what we mean by “cardio,” because what is theoretically an easy-to-define term is improperly applied to workouts that don’t match the intended spirit of the term.

In its purest form, “cardio” applies to aerobic exercise that elevates your heart rate, and thereby strengthens your heart and lungs in the process. In nearly all cases, a person’s aerobic system will kick in after three minutes of constant effort, resulting in all activities beyond the three-minute mark technically qualifying as “cardio.”

With that being said, activities that do not significantly elevate the heart rate or tax the lungs to the point where those organs are benefitted can still be beneficial. Hence, “cardio” is often loosely applied to forms of exercise that don’t necessarily challenge these systems. So technically, not all varieties of cardio are actually cardio if they’re executed too slowly. Even so, this doesn’t mean those workouts are unhelpful to you.

Walking and Your Metabolism

One of the most effective hacks to boosting your metabolism and burning more calories throughout the day is said to involve the simple act of standing up. It has been estimated that humans can burn up to 50 more calories per hour throughout the day simply by standing rather than sitting; actual studies place this figure at closer to 50 calories per day.

While an experiment comparing the results of sitting to standing found that there was barely any difference on a per-hour basis, the simple act of walking at the most casual of paces resulted in more than twice as many calories being burned over a 15-minute period than either standing or sitting. In this respect, walking has proven to be quite effective at chipping away at a caloric deficit, especially in comparison to the act of remaining stationary.

Walking and Calorie Burn

If you want to get serious about burning calories, this is where the discussion of walking gets interesting. People walking at a leisurely pace of two miles per hour on a flat surface — a speed at which most people can comfortably sustain a conversation with a companion for an indefinite amount of time — will burn around 200 calories for their troubles. 

At this minimal effort level, where the exertion is virtually imperceptible, it’s expected that the average physically active person will burn off 10 percent of their recommended daily caloric intake. Slightly picking up the pace or walking at a slight incline can cause the per-hour totals to increase dramatically, making casual walking a stunningly effective method of burning calories.

Walking and Heart Rate

The point where casual walking’s claim to be a source of pure cardio begins to suffer is during a discussion of its ability to challenge the heart and lungs. The figure that is usually proffered by the American Heart Association as a baseline for truly challenging your heart enough to improve and maintain its health is 3.0 miles per hour on a level surface, or 2.0 miles per hour at a steady incline.

Stated simply, while the act of casual walking may be more than enough to create a caloric deficit if you’re able to insert enough activities into your day, it may not elevate your heart rate enough to sustain your cardiovascular fitness level, and it certainly won’t prepare you for any sports or activities requiring an advanced level of conditioning.

Then again, since elevated weight has been found to directly inflate the risk of heart disease, walking can still reduce your risk of developing heart disease if it contributes to the maintenance of a healthy weight.

Keep all the goals of your workout session in mind

Because the act of engaging in regular cardio at a challenging pace can confer many benefits upon you, it’s critically important to identify which of those benefits are still bestowed upon you if you’re engaging in movement at a slower pace. In this instance, it’s important to remember that casual walking can very efficiently carve out a caloric deficit for you, but it may not be as helpful to your heart as you might have otherwise hoped.

Summary

1. Cardio has come to define any form of steady movement taken for exercise whether it produces a true aerobic effect or not.

2. Despite its ease, casual walking is very effective at contributing to a caloric deficit.

3. Because it fails to adequately elevate your heart rate, casual walking does not directly contribute to the health of your heart the way true cardiovascular exercises are expected to.

4. Non-aerobic movement can still contribute to heart health if it helps you to maintain a healthy body weight.

5. If your regular walking activities do not rise to the level of aerobic exercise, be aware that you may need to find another means of boosting the health of your heart.