Walk off 100 + pounds

Not long ago, Gina Buck got on a scale and saw that her weight had crept to 287 pounds. She was shocked. And then she started to get really worried about her health. "l said, 'I'm not getting any closer to 300 pounds,"' recalls the South Carolina retiree, 65, who has five beautiful granddaughters she wants to see grow up. "So l went to the doctor for diet pills." Her doctor, a no-nonsense woman who'd overcome weight issues herself, agreed to three months of appetite suppressants as a jump-start. But she also "prescribed" long-term strategies, including taking 10,000 steps a day and intermittent fasting. "It all made sense," Gina recalls. But after a lifetime of yo-yo dieting, she was skeptical she could actually make changes and stick with them. "Even so, l figured l had to try." So she found free phone apps to count her steps and help get her eating on track. What Gina didn't realize: At that very moment, scientists were finishing experiments on the same strategies she was about to try. And they would ultimately find that intermittent fasting has the power to help walkers like Gina triple their fat loss. Wow!

- ALLISON NEMETZ

As Gina’s journey got underway, she often turned to the internet for inspiration. And from the beginning, she’s loved the Start TODAY Facebook group, where Al Roker and thousands of others go for walking workouts, healthy meal ideas and expert advice. Best of all, says Gina, “Everyone cheers each other on!”

Turns out, Gina is one of many who have hit on the combo of walking and intermittent fasting. “It’s very popular,” confirms Today fitness contributor Stephanie Mansour, a weight-loss coach who helps create fitness challenges for the group. And many folks do indeed get triple-fat-burning results like those in the recent study. Why? Basically, the biochemical changes triggered by walking and fasting synergize inside us and lead to an explosion of benefits. “The combination can be like magic,” says Mansour.

Superpowers of step counting

Walking is one of the easiest workouts in existence, and it’s one of the most effective for weight loss. Why? Precisely because it’s easy. What many of us don’t realize is that more difficult forms of exercise, while good for building stamina, give our bodies so much to handle that they can’t efficiently convert stored fat to fuel. Instead, hard workouts burn mostly blood sugar. “Go gently, and the difference in fat burning is dramatic,” says Katarina Borer, Ph.D., whose studies at University of Michigan have revealed walking at a pleasant pace more than doubles fat burn compared to going all-out.

And with step counting you don’t have to set aside time to walk or wear special clothes. Just weave more steps into your normal routine. It’s easy-peasy, “so you’re more apt to do it,” notes Mansour. And consistency pays off. In one test, counting steps helped women be so much more consistent, they lost nearly 20 pounds before a group using traditional workouts shed 4 pounds.