Comment by BattyMilk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BattyMilk | Hacker News Reader

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If you're time starved and trying to work out like this, you're doing it wrong. There are much more time efficient ways to get some exercise.

Rather than driving 20 minutes each way to the gym, just put on some shoes and run/walk from your front door. You've saved 40 minutes and a bunch of money. Plus, if your goal is to lose weight, you've a far more effective workout.

Walk/run/bike to work. I've completed 2 Ironman triathlons and 75% of my training was done on my commute (my shortest route to work is 8 miles but I can take different routes and make it as long as I want) with hardly any impact (other than exhaustion) on my personal or professional life.

Walking is not effective for weight loss. Then there would be nothing left of me while working as a checker at a warehouse (35000 steps/day)

Walking burns a lot more calories than not walking.

"You can't out run a bad diet"

I don't know if it's true, but I often think the only real solution for weight loss is eating less, and that exercise is more of a way to improve general fitness rather than losing weight.

A caloric deficit is the only way to lose weight. You can burn off the calories that you eat, if you have the time and the energy; but the most efficient way is not to eat those calories in the first place and then exercise to improve your strength, cardio-vascualar stamina and flexibility.

You're also not mentioning the other half of the equation: calorie input. If someone eats the same amount of food, and walks more, then they're burning more than before when they were just sitting on the couch. Of course what often happens that the body starts wanting more energy for the new activity level, so many people end up eating more--no net change.

It should also be noted that there's more to exercise than just weight loss.

That is because the person I responded to didn't mention that and actually wrote that _walking_ was effective, not a caloric deficit.

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