Does Walking Really Help You Lose Weight in Your Butt & Thighs?

You really can lose weight in your butt and thighs from walking, but not just from walking back and forth from your mailbox. You need to stick with a program or routine if you intend to lose weight strictly from walking. If you continue with the program, you can maintain the weight you do lose. Aim for walking five to six times a week, 30 minutes per session.

Walking on flat terrain will not do much for your butt. You need to walk up an incline or up hills to tone your glutes. If you live in an impossibly flat place, find some stairs to walk up. Your butt and legs simply work harder when they go uphill. That one simple change to your walking routine can boost the calories you burn by 64 percent, according to Julia Valentour of the American Council on Exercise in Fitness magazine.

A leisurely stroll around your garden is probably not going to give you any of the cardio benefits you need to lose weight anywhere on your body. You need to be in the “moderate-intensity exercise zone” to burn calories, according to Fitness magazine. This is typically somewhere between a pace of 3 and 4.5 miles per hour. Determine how fast you are walking by timing how long it takes you to walk a mile. If it takes you 20 minutes, you are walking 3 miles per hour; 17 or 18 minutes, you are walking 3.5 miles per hour; 15 minutes, you are walking 4 miles per hour; 12 or 13 minutes, you are walking 4.5 miles per hour.

Accomplish interval training outside or on the treadmill. This powerful workout method improves the body’s ability to burn fat, according to a New York Times article. A good interval length is five minutes. For example, walk at a high intensity either by walking faster than you normally do or by walking up an incline for 30 seconds followed by 4 1/2 minutes of walking at your regular pace on flat terrain. The next five-minute interval could be two minutes of walking at your regular pace, two minutes of high intensity and one minute of regular pace. A more advanced interval would have the high intensity lasting longer than the rest period.

Combining exercise with your walk can help you lose weight specifically in your butt and thighs. One exercise that works your quads and glutes looks a bit like what a character on a Monty Python “Silly Walks” sketch would do. Raise your left knee as high as you can while rising up on the toes of your right foot. Simultaneously bend your right elbow toward your left knee. Hold for one second. Keep reversing sides.