I'm Dr. Shannon Ritchie. I'm a doctor of physical therapy, fitness trainer, and founder of

Ethelop Fitness. In the Dr. Shannon show, you'll learn applicable tools to improve your health

based on science. Welcome to the show.

Hi, everyone. Welcome back. Today we are talking about how walking affects body composition.

Walking is one of my favorite ways to stay overall active, and it has so many benefits,

from cardiovascular health, to being a really good activity for recovery day, to mental health

and anxiety reduction.

But how does walking affect your body composition?

Body composition is the ratio of lean mass to fat mass, and ideally we want a higher ratio.

So a higher lean mass to fat mass ratio.

Lean mass development, namely bone and muscle, can be increased through resistance

trading, close to failure, and eating enough protein. So while walking doesn't build

significantly mass, it can have an effect on fat mass. Now, to what extent does it have an

effect on fat mass? That's what I'll talk about today. If your goal is fat loss, nutrition

will have the largest impact.

Even if you are walking a lot, you will not lose fat if you're in an overall calorie surplus.

So that's important to say. I also don't recommend tracking calories burn from walking or any form of exercise and adding that to a food tracker if fat loss is your goal.

Fitness wearables are notoriously inaccurate and will likely unintentionally be overestimating

your calorie expenditure.

So if you're adding this to a food tracker, the tracker will add overall more calories to your

needs and this can put you in a calorie surplus unintentionally.

So while walking can have an effect on body composition, if you're eating in a surplus,

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