[powershift]

Very interesting thread.
I am 35 and healthier and health conscious than I was at 25. Lot of exercise at 25 but with improper diet ended with more of injury and bad knees.

Now trying to follow the advice from reliable source like NHS, which I feel makes a lot of sense.
A good fitness tracker would help to keep a track of it. I use a garmin vivoactive+google sheet for tracking.

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/

Quoting from NHS:
"Adults should:

aim to be physically active every day. Any activity is better than none, and more is better still
do strengthening activities that work all the major muscles (legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders and arms) on at least 2 days a week
do at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity a week or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity activity a week
reduce time spent sitting or lying down and break up long periods of not moving with some activity."

[VVN]

31 and although I used to be a lot fitter, I find walking to be much more beneficial compared to running. I started off the lockdown with 8-10k steps a day and gradually increased to 20k a day. I am planning to take it to 30k on some days with brisk walking. I personally dislike running. I prefer short bursts of speed followed by 20 mins of brisk walking. Ended up losing 10kgs.

[Mi10]

I started running or jogging in early 2016, Within a span of 6-7 months got hooked on to it and went on to Finish lot of 10km runs, half a dozen 21.1 kms runs and one Full Marathon - All within a span of 20 Months !
I was so engrossed in Running that i left all my other hobbies and was literally obsessed with this one. So much that from a paltry 67 min 10 kms (my first run) i went on to clock 42.5 min 10k in a mere 6 months timeline!

Before i had started running, i was quite overweight for my Height of 5.10 (used to oscillate around 83-86 kgs) but running and the strive to compete for better timings made me work on my other habits mainly;
complete full stop to Binge eating
as much as 80% cut in Junk Food
Timed, Calorie themed meals
Intake of Water (lots of it)
Early to bed and early to rise

This pic describes my change over; From ~85 Kgs to ~67.5 kgs (just before my Debut Full Marathon)



That said, all is not a rosy story. I suffered various injurious. Some of them;
Inner Knee Pains (ITB related)
Calf Pain
Glute Injuries
Heel Injuries

Literally 75% of my lower body was prone to some kinda niggle or injury !

But everytime you come out of an injury there is a lot of learning about your own body and your own mental strength. I enjoy this inner battles which keeps me hooked to running even now.

My Dad is a great advocate of walking over running, but i feel the lack of Drama around Walking makes me bored. Infact during this lockdown, where i couldnt run, i thought of walking around my apartments (350 mts), whenever i started the walk, i used to aim for min of 4-5 kms but will get bored after 2 kms and stop the activity.

[MOUNTAINMAN]

Originally Posted by Zed

Based on what I'm experiencing I have to say that there is evidence to support that walking can indeed have a very positive impact when it comes to reducing fat in hard to target areas. And in a way that is easier on the body than running.

Yes, for me its a mix of cycling, jogging and walking. I believe everyone should listen to their body and not over exert.
Exercising should be a continuous process and target should be a good health and not just weight loss.
I’m lucky to have my home town in the outskirts of Dehradun, this place has plenty of good places to cycle and hike. I enjoy being there often.

Originally Posted by GTO

Just note that if the objective is to lose weight, then it's 80% diet & 20% exercise. One can never outrun a bad diet.

Absolutely gold, I have experienced it first hand.
I was jogging 5-6 kms everyday for a few months to realize there was hardly any reduction in figures on the weighing scale, only to be pointed out by my wife where I was going wrong.

[no1lives4ever]

Same ballpark age as OP and have been moslty into walking. Added swimming along the way with a bit of running thrown in. My fitness journey has led me to gain and lose weight over the years and currently i am around max weight point :-( I am definitely fitter than what i was at age 25, but not at my fittest self today.

In my experience, walking does not help with weight loss. And I have done 2x 10+km walks every day for months to come to that conclusion. I mostly end up eating more. When i add even a little bit of running into the picture, i definitely start losing weight.

But the best way for me to lose weight has been swimming. I learned to swim in my 30s and have tried to swim almost daily during the swimming season in Delhi for a few years now. The swimming season in Delhi is roughly mid march to mid oct. I am not a very fast swimmer. I can do a 50m length in 1:20-1:30 normally, best time would be 55s or so). I normally do 4-5 sets of 500m swims. Where it is mostly freestyle with some initial sets having a length of breast stroke thrown in the mix. I find that I can rarely build up stamina to do long runs if I stick to walking + running/jogging, but when i do swimming on a regular basis, my stamina builds up pretty fast and I can easily run a lot more during the swimming season.

With somewhat relaxed swimming for 1-1.5hours a day (including breaks) + another 1 hour walk, i could easily achieve weight loss with no diet restrictions. I used to eat a combo of home cooked food + outside food.

The biggest causes for weight gain for me has been alcohol + late night snacking when meeting friends for weekend drinking sessions!

I spent a couple of months in Panjim during the winters a few years back and the sports authority pool there was a good one. For rs. 50 you could swim for 1 hour in a proper competetion pool and have no one come and bother you if you managed to get a lane to yourself.

Last year I did a combnation of 14/10 intermittent fasting + exercise throughout the day and that helped with a fair amount of weight loss. My routine was to go for a 5-7km walk in the morning (between 50m-1:30), walk 1km to the metro station, use stairs to get down to the underground station and platform, change metro lines and then walk another 1km to office from the destination metro station. My fitness tracker would put that as around 2.4km of walking. Use stairs to get to 2nd floor office, then repeat the same routine in reverse.

That was till i got attacked by a monkey during one of the morning walks and ended up with a ankle fracture. That made me replace the morning walk with swimming and the metro ride with car ride because i could drive but not walk.

I havent tried cycling in the last 20 years. In school I used to cycle a lot, but these days the traffic makes me avoid cycling. I am seriously considering getting a cycle now.

[vijayols]

Got to read some pretty interesting observations on the Running VS walking debate.i personally hate running(except in sports) and prefer walking.however to equate weight loss in my personal experience neither help unless as mentioned by GTO backed up with diet.Getting vitamin D and B 12 levels help too.

My weight loss journey at 47 a year ago began from a whopping 104 kg to my current 84 after touching 80 kgs was achieved mainly though diet and ofcourse a couple of hours exercise a day with an hour of walking.

I guess running would have helped burn fat faster but have had injuries to my knees which then takes a while to recover.

[JojyKerala]

I am 40 and weigh 70 kg. The last time I weight this low was when I was 15 years old.

I have lost weight through walking but I've never used running to lose weight. However, all my recent weight loss is through my secret weapon - Stair-climbing, which I do every morning and night without fail. Here is a chronology of my weight gain saga:

1998 to 2006: 75 to 78 kg
2006 to 2007: 95 kg (sudden spike thanks to gorging on fast food in the USA)
2008 to 2010: 78 kg (through active walking and controlling my diet portions)
2011 to 2018: 80 kg to 95 kg (when I touched 95 again, I decided to lose weight and turned to stair-climbing because its the easiest exercise to perform without any equipment)
2019 till pre-Covid: 78kg
COVID lockdown: 70 kgs. Prior to the lockdown, I never climbed in mornings and evenings - I only climbed at night. Thank you lockdown.

Summary: Stair climbing is a very rigorous exercise. I climb 18 floors twice in the morning and twice in the evening. That's 72 floors in a day. It can drain you and helps reduce weight. The best part is I can still eat my favourite food without worrying about weight gain.

Originally Posted by Mi10

This pic describes my change over; From ~85 Kgs to ~67.5 kgs (just before my Debut Full Marathon)

Beyond impressed! The transformation into a lean machine has been phenomenal!

[Arjun Bharadwaj]

Particularly for fat loss, if your body is physically capable then high intensity interval training helps better. This coupled with a diet high on protein and veggies + healthy fats + 30 to 40% of weight training. If you dont prefer weight training then atleast body weight exercises. Speaking from my experience of training for physique events(individual experiences can vary).

[antony5279]

Thats a very interesting topic.

I always hated running even though I was required to run 10km every Sunday as part of training. I was 55 kgs then, yet I suffered stress fracture. In my 20s I had to add weight and raise it to 80 for the sport I was involved with. Later I realised that I would lose about 15-20 kg each time I took part in an event, and would regain a bit more than what I lost once the event was over. Thats a truth I learnt. The body gains a little more weight than it loses each time, and that becomes your new normal. Weight loss first happens around the face and neck etc, the last to go is abdominal fat.

I believe long distance running isn't good for the body, because it is not natural for any animal. They either sprint (if it is short distance, eg hunting) or walk (if it is long distance, eg migration). Long distance running gets particularly bad if you are on the heavier side. All long distance athletes are very light!, if you have noticed.

That said, I do prefer the natural movement of the body when it is involved with a field sport. Which is sprint, stop, sprint, stop.

Walking over jogging any day for me. Unless I am warming up for gym workout.

[Tuisha110HP]

Here are my two cents:

I have been a very regular outdoor activities enthusiast. Before Covid-19, it was a full session of 1 hour badminton every morning. When the office timings changed, I started running and started playing cricket again every weekend and hitting gym every alternative day.

As far as I experienced, to loose weight one has to NOT let the body getting used to a particular muscle memory. If you are running, take brisk walking occasionally in between the week. Hence, the other muscles of the body would get activated and would burn more calories.

a) We need to understand how much our body can take and adjust the workout according to that. Most injuries are a result of crossing that fine line.

b) Weight training and diet. Not matter how much cardio vascular activity you do, you need to train your muscle for weights.

Human body is extremely intelligent in adjusting for the level of activity done by it. You need to cautiously and continuously adjust the bar/level taking into consideration its limit for best health benefits.

[Pacific]

39 going to turn 40 this September. I accept I have a 16 inch radial tire around my tummy (beer and chakna to be blamed). However, since April of this year I have found the joys of walking with bouts of slow jogging and man I have started loosing weight. Initially, my calves used to pain, then I found out that good shoes and running surface makes a lot of difference. Also, what I felt is 10K steps per day is a misnomer publicised by the likes of FitBits of the world. 10K will not cut the ice, AFAIK at least 15K+ steps is what is required to embark on the weight loss journey. Also, a good pace is essential. I started with 7K steps (walking) in 1 hour and now I am able to hit 9K steps in the same time period. Attaching my last weeks progress. At this rate, I am going through a new pair of sneakers every 6 - 8 months.

[landcruiser123]

Age old debate and I believe there is no "one size fits all" recommendation.
However I must add these points:
1. Try running on dirt trails. Running extensively on concrete/asphalt will hurt your back and/or knees.
2. My dad's cardiologist suggested that regular weekly running should be less than 30 miles (or 50 km). Research shows that the health benefits vs distance covered is an U-shaped curve. Extremely long distances (regularly) can cause harm.
3. Hiking/stair climbing is very effective. Not only is it good cardio, but it more effectively also burns the fat in the upper body.
4. Your fitness is 80% diet and 20% exercise- all your exercise is useless if your diet contains a lot processed food.

Personally, I hill climbing on my road bike. I consider it a from of exercise + travel. I avoid running as my knees find it uncomfortable- but I've ridden over 1600 miles (2500 km+) on my bicycle this year with no discomfort in my knee.

[sharatravan]

I used to be a hardcore runner. While it did give me benefits in the form of weight loss, I also lost significant amount of precious muscle mass in the process. So I made the switch to strength training and bodyweight exercises, and running comes mainly in the HIIT format, which I've realised is a much better way to run. If I'm unable to run, like in these times of lockdown, I walk inside the house which is just as good. The time taken to reach my target fitness levels has reduced drastically, while I've also developed a nice lean body with good muscle mass to give it definition. I've never been so fit ever.
Of course, it goes without saying that diet has a huge role to play in the weight loss journey and maintaining good health in general. Indeed it is 80% diet and 20% exercise.

[Old_Salt]

Was into running, pollution levels made me buy a treadmill to avoid going outdoors and now I exercise at home along with a multigym lifting weights 3 times a week.

One of the major difference is I use my treadmill at a slight incline, so it's more like a hill climb rather than just running on a flat surface. Ofcourse knees permitting.

Sharing a personal habit which has helped not only me but also my mom who had with slight knee pain.
We have a single piece of overnight soaked walnut first thing in the morning. Omega 3 fatty acids in them works well to reduce inflammation in the body and reduce arthritis related pain too.

[highlander]

My dad was diagnosed with diabetes in 1992 and has been a consistent walker ever since.
He walks ~8KMs each day in two chunks and only misses out when we travel out of town. Most of it is brisk walk which is around the pace of a slow jogger.
Its been almost 3 decades of walking and he has never had any issue with his knees/ligament/feet.

PS: Of course, as soon as he started walking, his weight was in prescribed limit in the very first year and has maintained a balanced diet ever since.