If you want to lose weight, it’s no secret that lacing up your sneakers for some exercise should help you reach your goals. However, a study published in the Journal of Obesity compared the weight loss effects of two popular types of cardio—running and walking—and found that faster isn’t always better. The researchers determined that there’s one surprising reason that going slow and steady can help you win the weight loss race: Though walking burns fewer calories than running, it’s also less likely to derail you from your diet.
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EricBlundy, DC, RN, a board-certified chiropractic neurologist, registered nurse, and medical content creator, recently explained the study’s findings in a TikTok post.
“There are two main factors that determine weight: One is there’s a genetic component, and two is hormones,” Blundy says. “Hormones drive different functions. In this study in the Journal of Obesity, hormones such as peptide YY, ghrelin—and I always call ghrelin the gremlin, that’s your hunger—and GLP-1 increased when doing cardio at a high intensity.”
In other words, when you turn up the intensity of your workout and burn more calories faster, your body will respond by increasing your hunger hormones to replace those calories lost. Walking tends to have a more subtle effect on your hormones and hunger, making you less likely to succumb to ravenous hunger or sudden cravings, the study suggests.
In his post, Blundy shares a hypothetical example of how running might interfere with your diet and increase your net calories.
“You go and run for 45 minutes, and you burn 500 calories, and another person walks, and they burn 350 calories. So in the [beginning], you’re going to say, ‘See? Running is superior.’ Except, when you’re done running, you go home, and you just ingest 500 calories, but when you’re done walking, you go back to doing what you’re doing, and you’re not overeating.”
He continues, “Your net calorie burn, your net fat loss, is going to be higher with walking.”
Blundy isn’t the only one touting the weight loss benefits of walking rather than running. BeauxAbington, a wellness and style expert with over 40,000 TikTok followers, recently shared a similar perspective on social media. She compared two sets of her own workout data—one from a day in which she ran and another from a day in which she walked a comparable distance—to illustrate how each workout can impact one’s weight.
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The first set of data shows that after a five-mile run lasting 48 minutes, she burned a total of 438 calories. The second shows a five-mile walk lasting an hour and nine minutes, in which she burned a total of 387 calories.
“I’m only burning about 100 calories more running than I am walking,” she pointed out, seemingly adjusting for the difference in workout length.
Abington explains that when you are in a calorie deficit, it’s normal to feel some minor hunger pangs throughout the day. “Most of us can work through that and still be relatively OK and hit our diet goals,” she notes.
However, if those feelings of hunger spike significantly, it’s difficult to stay within a calorie deficit.
“Running is that difference, unfortunately. So, by walking, you’re keeping your hunger feelings at a minimum while maximizing a deficit,” Abington explains.
Beyond weight loss, research also shows that there are numerous health benefits associated with increasing your step count. In particular, “walking decreases the risk or severity of various health outcomes such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes mellitus, cognitive impairment and dementia, while also improving mental well-being, sleep, and longevity,” a Dec. 2023 study published in Geroscience says.
Though taking just under 4,000 steps can begin to increase longevity, upping your step count from there will only further enhance your health. A 2020 study published in JAMA found that taking 8,000 steps per day was linked with a 51 percent lower risk of death from any cause compared with taking 4,000 steps a day. When that was upped to 12,000 steps, it was linked to a 65 percent lower risk. In the study, it didn’t matter how fast people walked, only the number of steps they took.
So, if you’re trying to decide between a high-intensity run and a lower-intensity walk of a comparable distance, there may be several good reasons to choose the latter, Abington says.
“I’ve said it to everyone a million times: Just walk it,” she advises.