The EASIEST Way to Lose Fat Faster (One Exercise!)

When it comes to speeding up the fat loss process and breaking through plateaus, one of the first tools people turn to is cardio. And while it's true that incorporating cardio can indeed be an effective way to lose fat faster, let's face it, cardio sucks for the majority of people, including myself, it's more often than not just flat out unenjoyable, which is why so many people struggle with implementing and adhering to a cardio routine. But luckily, there is one often overlooked exercise that enables you to lose fat faster without even breaking a sweat. And no, it's not one of those gimmicky vibrating machines promising to melt fat away effortlessly. It's instead something you likely already do every day. And it's walking now. Although it may seem like nothing compared to the more intense forms of cardio out there, it's something I'd recommend taking more seriously as a tool for fat loss for a variety of reasons. First off, and most importantly for you, adding some walking to your current fat loss regimen is an easy way to enhance the fat loss process, which is not only something I've personally experienced, but it's also proven in the literature. For example, one 2017 paper from the Journal of Nutrition analyzed the effect of walking on fat loss in 91 overweight men and women. Subjects were randomly assigned to either just a low calorie diet or the same low calorie diet plus brisk walking, which consisted of a total of three hours of added walking per week, or in other words, an added 25 minutes of walking a day. The result? After 12 weeks, the walking group lost around 3 pounds more fat than the non walking group, which may not sound like much, but really is a huge difference given that we're talking specifically about fat loss here and not merely weight loss. And although this result isn't necessarily surprising due to the added calories burned in the walking group compared to the non walking group, it still goes to show you how powerful a little bit of walking can be for long term fat loss. In addition, another major benefit of using walking for fat loss is that it minimally impacts muscle gains when compared to other forms of cardio. This is important because as you drop your body fat, you want to also maintain as much muscle mass as possible in order to prevent simply looking skinny fat after all your weight loss. And the main downside with most forms of cardio is that as summarized in this 2011 minute analysis, the more cardio you do, the more it interferes with strength and muscle gains. However, with walking, it's such a low impact exercise that it requires very little recovery, meaning that it's an easy way to burn additional calories without affecting your recovery and progress in the weight room. And finally, another reason why walking can be so effective for fat loss is its minimal effect on appetite. Now, although the effect of cardio and appetite depends on the form and intensity of the cardio you do, multiple studies have indicated that it often causes an increase in appetite and or a desire to be rewarded with food, which results in subjects eating back a significant portion of the calories they burned, which then results in less fat loss. Whereas with walking, as shown in this 2010 paper by King and colleagues, calories burned while walking are less likely to be compensated for by food intake, mainly because walking doesn't trigger hunger as much as other forms of cardio do, nor does it trigger a response to be rewarded with by food, therefore making it easier to maintain an energy deficit. So it's clear that walking can be an effective tool to speed up the fat loss process. But how much walking should you do? Well, based on a decade's worth of research, this literature review by the American College of Sports Medicine found that between 150 to 250 minutes of additional brisk walking per week is enough to speed up fat loss when combined with a calorie deficit through your diet, of course. So starting out with roughly 150 minutes of added walking per week, or which can be accomplished by simply going for a 30 minute brisk walk five times a week would be a good starting point. And a really easy way to make this more enjoyable or productive for you is to just use this time to listen to podcasts, take your dog out, and so on. It would also be wise to gradually increase the duration of your walks over time, or make them more difficult by increasing the pace, for example, or walking on an incline or hill. This is just going to help you continuously progress throughout the weeks and avoid reaching plateaus as your body adapts to the current regimen. Now to put the effect of walking on fat loss into perspective, the average person burns roughly 200 calories when brisk walking for 30 minutes. So given that one pound of fat consists of 3,500 calories, walking for an additional 150 minutes per week will theoretically enable you to burn an extra one third of a pound of fat per week, which amounts to over a pound of extra fat loss per month. This may not sound like much to you, but when combined with a proper calorie deficit through your diet and a regular weightlifting routine, it will make a significant and noticeable difference in speeding up the fat loss process over time. With that being said, though, walking definitely isn't the fastest way to burn additional calories and therefore, if needed, can be paired with other more intense forms of cardio throughout the week, which I show how to do in my cardio routine video and I'll link that in the description box down below. But the fact that walking is so convenient, enjoyable, and can be done anywhere and means that it's a form of exercise that you'll be much more likely to stick with and in the long run, that's what matters the most. And that's ultimately what makes walking such a powerful tool for fat loss and a tool that you should definitely consider incorporating into your routine.

So to conclude the video, here are the main points. Just keep in mind though, that adding an additional 150 minutes of brisk walking per week honestly isn't going to do anything if you're not first employing a calorie deficit through your diet. That, along with sticking to a good weightlifting routine needs to be a priority as these are what's going to drive the majority of your fat loss results with the additional walk in just there to help speed up the process. And if you're looking for a complete evidence based program that shows you exactly how to easily combine all of this so you can burn off excess body fat while maintaining and even building muscle in the process, then simply head on over to builttuthscience.com courses where you can view my two SHRED programs which are designed specifically for this purpose. Anyways, that's it for today. I do need your help though, guys. I'm trying to plan out my future content, so I'd really appreciate it if you just left a comment down below as to what you'd like to see me cover and I'll take a look at the comments and see what seems to be most popular. Also, if you haven't yet done so, I'd really appreciate a follow on the gram. I post a lot of informative content on there as well, so just give me a follow so you can be sure you're not missing out on anything. And as always, if you enjoyed this video, please don't forget to give it a like and subscribe to my channel if you haven't already. That's it for today. Thank you so much everyone. I'll see you next time.