Exercise
Steps are for your health, not your waistline
Walking is oversold for weight loss and undersold for everything else.
What it’s worth
About 1.3kg from walking alone
Do this
- →Keep walking. Just stop expecting the scale to be the thing that moves.
- →Judge it on mood, sleep, blood pressure and how you feel on stairs.
- →If weight is the goal, the kitchen is where that argument gets settled.
Why it works
An hour of walking costs a few hundred calories, which is roughly one large snack. Appetite also compensates for part of it. That's a poor trade if fat loss is the only objective, and an excellent one for almost every other health outcome.
The evidence
Trials of walking programmes without dietary change find around 1.3kg lost. The cardiovascular, metabolic and mental-health benefits over the same period are considerably larger and better established.
The honest bit
Most of the health benefit accumulates by roughly 7,000 to 8,000 steps, and the 10,000 figure came from a 1960s pedometer marketing campaign rather than from research.
Knowing it isn’t the hard part
You’ve just read the tactic. The difficult bit is the Tuesday in six weeks when you’re tired and it’s raining. Milo is a coach you text like a friend: it knows which of these you’re working on, notices when it slips, and brings it up once rather than nagging.
See how Milo worksTry next
- A short walk after eating — Two to fifteen minutes flattens the glucose spike considerably.
- Swap the sugary drinks — The single biggest win available to anyone who drinks their calories, and it costs almost nothing.
- Sleep a bit longer, eat noticeably less — If you're under about six and a half hours, this is a bigger lever than most diets.
General information, not medical advice. If you have a health condition, are pregnant, or are under 18, talk to a healthcare professional before changing how you eat or train.