I Lost 10 Pounds in 30 Days With Walking and Eating Real Food

YouTuber Ashley (@Fairley Simple Life) lost 10 pounds in 30 days using the most simple, easy, and straightforward methods ever. She makes the point that it's not something that happens overnight, and by taking it slow and steady, she reached her weight loss goals in a reasonable amount of time and couldn't be happier with the results. So, how exactly did she do it? Ashley says it's down to two specific things. Read on to find out more!

Walking 10K Steps a Day

Ashley made sure to hit 10k steps every single day. Walking has many benefits for overall health, wellness, and fitness. "Physical activity, such as walking, is important for weight control because it helps you burn calories," says Donald Hensrud, M.D. via Mayo Clinic. "If you add 30 minutes of brisk walking to your daily habits, you could burn about 150 more calories a day. Of course, the more you walk and the quicker your pace, the more calories you'll burn."

Weight Watchers

Ashley used Weight Watchers (WW) to get her diet under control and stay in a deficit. "WW is a weight loss program that uses a combination of simplified food tracking and support from coaches and other members to help people lose weight," Cara Everett, MS, RDN, LDN, says via NCOA. "The company claims you can lose 1–2 pounds per week on the program, which is a safe rate of weight loss according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)."

Slow and Steady

By losing 10 pounds in one month, Ashley was only slightly ahead of the official guidelines for 1-2 pounds a month for safe, sustainable weight loss. By using WW, she enjoyed real foods while still dropping pounds. "Don't have a dieting mentality," obesity medicine physician Jeffrey McDaniel, MD, tells Piedmont Health. "Have a lifestyle-change mentality."

Interval Walking

By focusing on walking, Ashley simplified her workouts and made weight loss easier. Walking can be adapted if you want to burn even more calories. "You can also alternate periods of brisk walking with leisurely walking," say the experts at the Mayo Clinic. "This type of interval training has many benefits, such as improving cardiovascular fitness and burning more calories than regular walking. And interval training can be done in less time than regular walking."

Don't Feel Restricted to 10K

If you want to walk more than 10k steps a day, go for it. The more calories burned, the faster the weight will come off. What's important is moving throughout the day. "It takes effort, but we can accumulate 15,000 steps a day by walking briskly for two hours at about a four-mile-per-hour pace," Dr. William Tigbe, a physician and public health researcher at the University of Warwick, tells the New York Times. "This can be done in bits. Our metabolism is not well-suited to sitting down all the time."

Incline Walking

Want to give your walking workouts an edge? Start walking on an incline. "The higher you set the incline, the more energy your body is forced to use to help activate your glutes, quadriceps, and calves, all of which have to put in overtime when the incline is increased," certified personal trainer Chrys Crockett tells NBC News. "This increase of energy burns more calories and, depending on your weight and cardiovascular endurance, can also burn more fat."

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Track Your Food

One way to make your WW experience more successful is to track exactly what you are eating. "Registry showed that 74.4% of members who lost at least 20 pounds on WeightWatchers and kept it off for at least a year track their food most of the time or all of the time," according to WW.

Meal Prep

Set yourself up for success by planning your meals ahead. "When you're busy and don't know what's for dinner, it's more tempting to go for the easy option, like the restaurant drive-through, rather than the more time-intensive choice of thinking about what to cook, ensuring you have the ingredients on hand, and making a meal at home," says WW. And if you enjoyed this article, take advantage of these 15 Quick Ways to Lose Body Fat Percentage in a Week.