Perhaps the cheapest and most expedient way to lose weight is to walk it out. Most people can lose at least one pound a week by walking at a moderate pace for at least thirty to sixty minutes a week.

Not only is walking great for weight loss, but it also cuts your risk of stress related mood disorders, heart disease, colon cancer, stroke, breast cancer and diabetes!

Every individual is different when it comes to how long it will take for him or her to burn the fat off. To put it simply, a pound of fat equals 3500 calories. In order to lose that one pound a week you will need to burn off 3,500 more calories than the total calories that you consumed for that week.

Time does not matter as much as distance. However the faster you walk the more calories you will be burning per mile.

Walking your weight off is not the same as strolling. You can stroll weight off but it will take a lot longer then if you walk at the optimal fat burning pace. This determined pace means that you are breathing a little hard but not so hard that you cannot carry on a conversation in full sentences.

It helps to pretend that you are walking fast, like you would if you were a bit late for an important appointment. When you are walking at this speed it means that you are exercising at sixty to seventy percent of your maximum heart rate, which burns calories efficient, helps create lean muscle and elevates the efficiency of the metabolism.

So how do you know how many calories you are expending? A simple rule of thumb is 100 calories per mile for a 160-pound person.

However to treat walking your weight off seriously you will need two tools, a pedometer which can be acquired for about twenty dollars at a drug store and some way of counting the calories of the foods you eat every day. This can be as simple as an online site with lists of calorie values for different foods and a notebook.

Most pedometers automatically calculate the amount of calories that you have burned based on your weight, height and other values. Most of them measure the distance you have walked in both miles and calories burned. This allows you to easily see how many calories you have burned during a walking session.

By keeping track of the calories you consume during the day you can easily calculate how far you would need to walk to burn off the 3,500 calories that you would need to burn off in one week to lose just one pound. If you wanted to lose two pounds then you would increase your walking to burn off 7,000 calories a week.