Walking to work can help beat the traffic and beat the bulge. If you're lucky enough to have a fairly short commute, ditching the car and choosing to walk can burn thousands of extra calories over a year.
According to research, 2.8 million Brits walk to work and a twenty minute walk, twice a day, is enough to drop a dress size. 66% of Brits say they would opt to exercise more to lose weight.
Rachel Hartley, co-founder of calorie experts, Nutracheck, explains more "Just a brisk, 20 minute walk, twice a day, will burn around 850 extra calories over a working week. That's over 40,000 calories a year, equating to over 10lbs - which is around one dress size smaller, without doing anything else - and no expensive gym fees."
"When we asked people what approach they would choose to try to lose weight, 66% said they would exercise more - it's a popular option. If exercise is your top choice, walking to walk is a good way to fit it into your daily routine - it doesn't cost anything and it quickly becomes addictive - especially if you invest in an activity tracker like Fitbit, which counts steps and works out the calorie burn for you."
"Our members tell us they are more likely to commit to exercise if they think they will benefit from it; in this case, there's a definite impact on you - provided you don't grab a latte en route! And even if you can't walk to work, 20 minutes twice a day is something many people can commit to. Any increase in the amount of exercise you do, combined with the same - or reduced amount - of calories consumed, will help you to manage your weight better."
"However, nutrition has a much bigger effect on weight loss than exercise, so if you're serious about losing weight - and keeping it off - you need to know your calorie numbers and understand how much you're consuming too - either by counting calories or keeping a food diary. Most of us overestimate how many calories we're burning off walking round the park - it takes a lot more effort to burn calories than to eat or drink them."
Walking to work has so many health benefits!