9 Common Mistakes When Walking for Weight Loss—And How to Avoid Them

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Walking is perhaps the simplest form of exercise: As humans, we inherently know how to do it, and you don’t need special equipment to complete a walking workout—all you need is a well-fitted pair of shoes.

Plus, it’s low-impact, which means you can walk as often as every day with less chance of injury compared to high-impact movements like running, Michele Stanten, an ACE-certified fitness instructor, walking coach, and author of several books, including Walk Off Weight and Walk Your Way to Better Health, tells Runner’s World.

These factors, among others, can make walking a smart choice for weight loss.

But it’s not as straightforward as slipping on those walking shoes and watching the pounds fall off. Experts say there are common mistakes people make that hold them back from achieving their goals. But with the right know-how, you can easily correct these errors or avoid them in the first place.

We tapped two experts to understand nine common pitfalls people encounter when walking for weight loss and what to do instead. Use this advice to kickstart your walking for weight loss program—or fine-tune the one you already have going.

🏃🏻‍♀️ Ready to unlock a stronger, healthier you? Our Walking for Weight Loss guide can make it happen!

1. Donning the Wrong Shoes

There are lots of reasons why your feet, hips, knees, or back might hurt during or after your walk, including biomechanical errors, strength imbalances, and mobility issues. But sometimes, the cause is simpler: You’re in the wrong shoes.

As Stacie Page, PT, DPT, a board-certified orthopedic physical therapist at Johns Hopkins, explains it, donning shoes that don’t provide enough stability for your biomechanics can lead you to overpronate when you walk (meaning, your foot rolls inward excessively), which can in turn cause injury at your foot or ankle and also contribute to knee, hip, and back pain. Similarly, wearing shoes that don’t provide the cushioning your body needs can up your chances of shin splints and heel pain, she adds. Beyond that, walking in shoes that don’t feel comfortable or fit properly can lead to blisters and also alter your form, Page says.

All of these issues can decrease your chances of staying consistent with a walking program, which in turn, can throw a wrench in your weight loss goals.

So what’s the solution? Well, some of these issues arise from choosing an improper shoe from the get-go, but they can also crop up when once-appropriate shoes wear out. The latter is why Page suggests getting new walking shoes when you notice the tread has worn or every 300 miles. And if you notice aches and pains before that point, consider getting evaluated by a specialist at a shoe store to understand if you’d benefit from a different kind of footwear.

2. Adding Weights

Adding external load to your walk—in the form of dumbbells or ankle weights—may seem like a no-brainer way to up the intensity of your workout and thus increase the caloric burn. But it’s actually not a great idea, Stanten says. That’s because many times using these weights causes you to slow your pace, she explains. And the slower you walk, the fewer calories you burn over a given time period.

Also, chances are, the weights you’re carrying are pretty light, which means they likely won’t add enough resistance to provide strength benefits or counteract the caloric burn you’re sacrificing with your slowed pace. Then there’s the fact that they place more pressure on your joints and can alter your gait, which may up your chances of injury. Basically, “the benefits do not outweigh the risks,” Stanten says.

The potential caveat here is that weighted vests or walking with a heavy backpack “can be beneficial,” Stanten says. The added heft, she explains, can help improve bone density and may boost leg strength. Plus, carrying weight closer to the center of your body is safer on your joints than carrying weight further away, she says. Still though, you’re likely to slow your pace when wearing a weighted vest or backpack and thus can “lose out on some of that calorie burning which drives the weight loss,” she says.

To boot, it can deliver a lot of load to your spine and hips, which could be potentially harmful to some people, Page adds. For that reason, she suggests getting comfortable with a bodyweight walking program first before adding in extra load. If/when you do decide to try a vest or backpack, pay attention to how your body feels during and after the fact. If aches or pains crop up, it may not be the best option for you.

3. Walking Too Casually

Walking with a friend or talking on the phone while you walk may seem like smart multitasking, but there’s a downside: It slows you down. “Even if you’re just walking [by yourself] and not paying attention or pushing yourself, you tend to walk at a comfortable pace,” Stanten says. And that’s problematic for weight loss because if you want to maximize the calorie burn of your walks, “the biggest bang for your buck” comes from picking up your pace, Stanten says. Specifically, the number of calories you burn increases exponentially once you start walking at a pace that’s faster than 15 minutes per mile, she says.

Of course, that equates to a pretty speedy clip, which may not be doable for you to sustain for an entire workout, especially if you’re just starting out. So as an alternative, Stanten suggests incorporating speed intervals to boost your overall calorie burn. For example, switch between 30 seconds of fast walking and 60 seconds of moderate walking, or walk fast for one block, then slow your pace for the next two. You can also increase your speed by emphasizing a fast arm swing. “Your arms and legs want to be in sync,” Stanten explains. “So when you pick up that arm intensity, it can get your legs moving a little faster.”

A few important caveats: You can absolutely walk vigorously with a buddy—you’ll just want to set expectations upfront and accept that you probably won’t be gabbing effortlessly. Also, not every walk should be performed at a super-speedy pace. Even when you’re striving for weight loss, it’s important to incorporate lower-intensity walks to allow your body the downtime it needs to recover. More on that in a minute.

4. Taking Longer Strides

Building off the above point, a common mistake people make when trying to walk faster is taking longer strides. But that actually just slows you down, Stanten says. Basically, when you place your foot far out in front of your body, it acts like a break, and you then have to exert more effort to pull yourself forward, she explains.

A better approach is to let your foot land closer to your body, land with your heel, roll through your foot, and push off with your toe. “It is a much smoother, faster leg turnover, which is what increases your speed,” Stanten says. She suggests doing this drill to get an idea of where your front foot should ideally land: From a standing position, lift one leg up so your thigh is parallel to the ground and your foot is hanging directly under your knee. Now flex that foot and put that heel straight down on the ground. “That’s about where you want your foot landing in front of you as you’re walking,” Stanten says.

Now that you know proper foot placement, increase your speed by taking more steps. (In other words, adopt a higher cadence.) “The more steps you take, the faster you’re walking,” Stanten says. To help improve your cadence, she suggests counting your steps over a 30-second interval. Then, repeat that 30-second interval with the goal of taking one or two more steps during that interval. “Over time, you should be able to increase how fast you walk,” Stanten says.

5. Adopting Poor Posture

Yes, walking is intuitive for humans, but that doesn’t mean you automatically adopt proper form. Stanten says she commonly sees people make the mistake of hiking their shoulders up toward their ears, especially when walking in the cold, which creates a lot of tension in the upper back. Another no-no is bending your spine (versus keeping it straight), which can cause low back pain, especially when you’re walking longer or faster, she says.

Avoid all this by regularly checking your posture: Focus on standing up tall and keep your shoulders pulled down and back as you stride. By staying mindful of good form, your walks will feel more comfortable and thus you’ll be more likely to do them consistently, which is a key ingredient of weight loss.

6. Doing the Same Walk Every Time

When you’ve found a walking workout that works for you, it can be tempting to do it day in and day out. But putting your favorite on repeat is not recommended, Stanten says. That’s because your body will eventually adapt to whatever workout you’re doing, causing a fitness plateau. Plus, doing high-intensity walking, in particular, every time can actually sabotage your progress. Like we mentioned, your body needs ample downtime between tough sessions to adequately recover. So if you rob it of that, you simply won’t get as fit and strong.

Avoid this mistake by regularly injecting variety into your walking routine, which you can do by varying the terrain, intensity, and duration of your workouts. For example, hit the track one day, traverse a hilly road route the next day, and tackle a gravel trail the following, Page says.

On the intensity front, Stanten suggests striving for two to three high-intensity walks a week with a day break in between each where you do lower-intensity walks. Once this feels comfortable, you can increase to three to four high-intensity walks per week, she says. On your lower-intensity walks, consider sometimes incorporating a meditation component, where you’re focusing on your breathing and the sights and sounds around you. “That can help reduce stress, which is also an important component when you’re trying to lose weight,” Stanten says.

7. Only Walking for Exercise

When weight loss is your goal, it’s easy to focus on cardio—and cardio alone. But you’ll actually get better results if you combine cardio with strength training. As Stanten explains it, when you lose weight, you don’t just lose fat; you lose muscle, too. But if you incorporate strength training as part of your weight loss plan, you can preserve and even increase your muscle mass. And that’s a good thing because the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn at rest, Stanten says. To boot, the stronger you are, the more energy you’ll have overall, which will help you stay more active throughout the day, further boosting progress toward your weight loss goals, she adds.

Strength training is especially important for people taking GLP-1s, Page adds. This class of prescription medications (which include the drugs Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound) is super effective for weight loss, but new research shows people taking these drugs can lose a lot of muscle mass in the process, Stanten says. A regular strength training routine can help combat that.

You don’t need to become a powerlifter to gain these benefits. Stanten suggests striving for two to three sessions a week, focusing on exercises that hit all your major muscle groups. Use weights that are challenging but still allow you to maintain good form.

8. Not Moving Enough During the Day

Starting your day with an hour-long power walk is awesome. But if you then follow that up with 11 hours of sitting at a desk, you’re ultimately just thwarting your progress. Spending a lot of time sitting down impacts you on a cellular level, Stanten explains, which is why it can increase your risk of health issues including heart disease, high cholesterol, and diabetes. It also just doesn’t feel great on your musculoskeletal system, which explains those aches and pains you have after a marathon Zoom call or Netflix binge.

The solution: “We need to get up throughout the day and just move,” Stanten says. And “walking is an easy way to do that.” So whether it’s taking a lap around the floor of your office in between meetings, walking up the next flight to use the bathroom, or taking a casual saunter after dinner with your family, find ways to incorporate small but frequent doses of walking into your day. These micro bursts can be more leisurely than your actual walking workout, “but you’re up and you’re moving, and all of that movement is beneficial and is going to help with weight loss and and help you keep pounds off, too, once you lose them,” Stanten says.

9. Neglecting Dietary Changes

Here’s the hard truth that you probably already know about weight loss: If you want to see results, your diet has to be on point. “Walking on its own, even walking with strength training, is not going to do it if you have poor eating habits,” Stanten says. So in addition to adopting a well-rounded fitness plan, make sure your nutrition is supporting your goals too. This means ensuring you’re not overfueling or underfueling (the latter of which can hamper exercise performance and increase injury risk, since your body isn’t getting the nutrition it needs to perform its best). If you’re at a loss on the nutrition front, consider enlisting a registered dietitian for help.

Generally speaking, many people tend to overestimate the number of calories they burn in a workout and underestimate how many they consume in their diet, Stanten says—an imbalance that can interfere with weight loss. To get an accurate estimate of how many calories you’re likely burning during your workouts, Page suggests this interactive online tracker. Simply input your weight and the duration of your workout to get an estimate of how many calories you’d consume doing various forms of exercise, including several types of walking.