I get my summer vacation soon..
 

Had a question about exercise. I am a school teacher with 2 small kids of my own, with little time to walk. I love to power walk to lose weight. My summer vacation is coming up and I get 3 months to powerwalk in the mornings. My question is how important is dieting when exercising? The last time I tried to lose weight, I ate fewer calories and lost all energy to walk. At this point, dieting seems a waste of my time. I don't mind eating less junk food, but if I am powerwalking 1 or more hours a day, how important is calorie restriction? Can exercise be enough? Or at least the most important part of my weight lose challenge? I am looking forward to my vacation months very much and want to give it all I got, no mistakes this time.

Thanks!
Heidi
160/158/135

You should most definitely add in more cals to compensate for your increased energy expenditure. Even though it sounds odd you have to keep your cals UP!

Try adding 500kcals to your dietary allowance on the days you walk. This should cover you for about 1.5 hours of power walking. This means that if you want to restrict your kcals by 20% to reduce weight at a controlled rate (about 2lbs a week) then you should add the extra 500kcals to your restricted amount.

For example, my daily kcal allowance is just short of 1400kcals. On the days I teach an exercise class I add 250 kcals to my diet. When I do an hours worth of exercise for myself I add 400kcals to my allowance. By doing this I make sure my daily kcals intake stays above 1200, so's my body doesn't go into the 'starvation' mode.

This sounds like the phenomenon you experienced last time you tried to lose weight. You exercised without allowing for it in your dietary allowance and didn't give your body enough fuel to cope with the walking you did.

You might get some more info from people here doing WW or SW as their info packs supply customers with such info. The figures may vary a little but the concept will be the same, you do need to diet and exercise to succesfully lose weight and maintain the loss AND you should increase you kcals to allow for the exercise you do to be successful.

Happy walking

Thank you very much for your response. It makes sense to me that when I don't eat enough for energy, I can't move as fast as I want to. Thus not losing all that I know I can. Thank you for confirming my suspisions.

Heidi.