I’m just as guilty as the next person in ignoring the most basic exercise that can result in weight loss – walking.

After getting over a respitory cold and missing about 2-weeks of normal activity including hockey, jogging and gym time at the weights, I had an especially hard workout earlier today.  With the cold still lingering in my chest, I wasn’t able to put in the same time on the elyptical trainer that I typically do.

Even at that, I noticed with a hard 20-minutes of activity on the weight loss mode of my elyptical trainer I had only burned an estimated 280 calories. 

It hit me, an average male weighing in the neighborhood of 180 lbs can lose up to 115 calories just walking at a decent pace – say 2 m.p.h – meaning that if I could fit a 30-minute walk in 5-days a week I would be close to what I burn in 20-minutes of more strenuous elyptical training 3-times each week. 

I concluded – walking gets a bad rap!

Here we starve ourselves, try all kinds of whacky diets and just about kill ourselves in the gym while ignoring the most basic weight loss technique of all – walking.

Come to think of it, before we had our second child, we walked every night after dinner for at least 30-minutes and weight wasn’t a problem back then.  I assumed it was just old-age creeping up, but now I realize it was likely the overlooked 45-minute walks we took. 

I’m still heading back to the gym tomorrow and will still watch what I eat at lunch tomorrow, but I’m also going to make sure I fit a regular walk in each day knowing that not only will I lose more weight, but I’ll be of more sound mind for taking 45-minutes out of my day to just enjoy a good walk.

What about you – do you think of walking as exercise?