Walking Not Working?

Walking is a great exercise for losing weight, but if you keep taking the same walk at the same pace, week after week, and month after month, you may find your scale doesn't budge anymore. This has happened to me and it can be very frustrating!

Keep in mind that the amount of calories you burn doing any activity changes with your weight. A 150-pound person walking an average of 3.5 miles per hour burns about 130 calories an hour. When you weighed more, you burned more calories with the same workout.

If you don't lose weight when walking anymore, mix it up. You may be experiencing a plateau because your body has become accustomed to what you've been doing -- that means you're burning fewer calories. Remember the FITT principle? It stands for frequency, intensity, time and type of exercise.

You may have to adjust all four of these factors to start peeling pounds again. If you can't alter all aspects at once, tackle one a week (Walk more often this week; walk faster the next week, etc.). If you find you can't consistently make workout changes, you may need to adjust your food and beverage caloric intake to be lower. The lower your weight, the fewer calories you need.

Consider alternating your regular walk with another type of exercise such as a kickboxing class or starting Pilates. This will give your weight-loss efforts a boost and will introduce you to a new activity that you just might find more enjoyable than that same old, same old walk!

More: Seven Things You Don't Know About Walking for Weight Loss