Walking reduces your whole body?

I have a question, Does walking makes your body fully shaped? Or doing exercise is better option? I am always satisfied when i do exercise not walking?
If i am doing walk for about 30 mints daily is it going to reduce weight?

Another question is that if we are walking daily are we going to loose fat belly hips flabby arms etc etc? Or only fat legs fat are going to be reduced?

Exercise such as resistance/weight training will shape your body. Walking is strictly an energy burning activity. You burn way more calories doing proper weight training. Generally, long sessions of cardio strictly cut weight, not fat. So if you have a pear shaped body, you'll just be a smaller pear with lots of cardio and no weight training. To actually shape yourself, weight training is almost a must. If you walk 30 minutes a day, you might reduce weight, but it all depends on what you eat. You can't walk for 30 minutes and then eat like a bear and expect to lose weight. You have to do both correctly. Strictly speaking though, if you do weight training, you'll be able to eat more and still lose weight, because of the amount of calories burned is higher.

To your last question: You're wrong either way. No activities target specific parts of your body. Burning calories is burning calories. If you run on a treadmill for 20 minutes a day, your legs could get smaller...or your biceps, or your stomach, or your back. You don't get to choose. It has nothing to do with what you're doing. Only specific-muscle training will increase the size of that muscle, but the fat around it cannot be targeted or singled out.

To echo an00bis, you can't target specific fat... oh, how I wish that weren't true! The biggest gain you get from walking/cardio is that it boosts your metabolism to help you burn more calories over the course of the day. You may only burn 100 calories walking but your metabolism will operate at an elevated rate to replace the energy used while walking because it used the on hand reserves first. Another benefit of strength/resistance training is that muscle requires more energy to maintain so your body will have to use more calories simply to maintain the muscle which usually helps reduce fat. A down side about strength/resistance training is that Muscle weighs more for it's size than Fat. If you start building muscle you may not get the numerical results you think you should on the scale. I personally like to alternate between Cardio and Strength so I get the metabolism boost and can target specific muscle groups to help shape my body rather than simply shrink it.

While that's true, I hope no one actually considers that a genuine disadvantage. If you look like a ripped, chiseled God among mere mortals, who cares how much the scale says you weigh?

I definitely have to completely second your last point. A mix of resistance training and cardio is the absolute perfect workout regiment. Mix in some fun daily activities such as sports/dance/martial arts, and your body's metabolism becomes a veritable calorie furnace.

ROFL Yeah, I wasn't trying to disuade anyone from Strength training I just wanted to make them aware that they might encounter that effect. A lot of people seem to only care about the number on the scale. Personally, I don't care if a weigh a Metric Ton if I "look like a ripped, chiseled God among mere mortals"!

haha, right on. Unfortunately, it seems like females generally have that outlook though. "I don't want to lift weights because I'll bulk up". That's so funny to me.

Someone posted this article a long time ago, and I think it's relevant to the original poster's question, so I'll go ahead and drop it in here. It solidifies our point quite nicely.

http://figureathlete.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/training/4_things_your_girlfriend_should_know

I read the article but where would a SAHM start who can only workout at home during naptime? Are there any good resistance training DVD's? I have 3,5 & 8lbs weights now. If I do higher weight and lower reps, perhaps I should get 10, 12 and 15lbs? I have to admit that I like the idea of adding resistance training 3 days/wk, instead of (5-6) hour long cardio sessions. I do like to go for 2-3 mile walks as many days a week as I can either 1st thing in the morning or during the evenings but that is more for stress relief than anything.

It seems the article is right about cutting calories too drastically because I've recently cut mine to 1000 below my RDI when I joined a challenge on here and my weight loss stalled almost immediately.

My wife used to try to stay below 900 calories all the time. Drove me nuts, as I was worried about her health doing that. She would never really listen to me about it either. She decided she wanted to do Jenny Craig and on our first consultation the consultant told her she should be eating at least 1200 calories. This completely shocked my wife, as if she had never heard this before... However, since it was a "professional" telling her, she listened and has been doing much better on her weight loss. She no longer has unbearable cravings from starving herself and has had a steady loss every week, unlike when she was sub-900 calories.

As for resistance training I have no idea about DVDs, I'm sure there are some. There is probably also a lot of information on the web. Heck, worst case scenario, use the kid as a weight!

You don't need a lot of equipment to do some strength training. You can definitely do some at home. Weightlifting is great, but it isn't the only way to build strength. There are a lot of DVDs like P90-X or pilates that are focused on building muscles. Some on the simplest exercises are also some of the best: push ups, pull ups, squats, lunges, etc.

This site has exercises you can do at home with little to no equipment.

Exercise demos

I like bodybuilding.com for demonstrations on weight lifting.

Thanks alot that link is really helpful!!!!

Thank for great information but can u explain what is cardio? Because i am not much into exercise and gym you know i do it at home from many youtube videos and they have helped me loose alot of weight as well but i never know what is cardio? :s
And what do you mean by weight training means i need to join gym right? I cant go to gym and i want to do workout at home!

Sure, I'll try and explain.

Cardio is a general way of categorizing activities that get your heart rate high. Usually people mean jogging/running, using an exercise machine such as a stationary (or regular) bike or elliptical. This can also, however, mean doing activities such as swimming, hip-hop dancing, etc.

If I were you though, I would definitely look into doing HIIT, which stands for High Intensity Interval Training. It's the more effective form of cardio. Rather than running 4 miles a day or something crazy like that, it involves alternating between high intensity and moderate intensity activities for short bursts of time. Here's a quick 15 minute example.

On a stationary bike or elliptical, set the resistance to moderate and go for about 2 minutes, then crank up the resistance and push as hard as you can for 20 seconds. Then do another 10 seconds of moderate, 20 seconds of high intensity, 10 seconds of moderate, 20 seconds of intense, and lastly 10 seconds of moderate intensity. That's 4 minutes. Then do that 3 times in a row, and then go moderate for another 3 minutes.

This is a very effective method of increasing your heart rate without doing long sessions. If you do other resistance training, doing HIIT is more beneficial than long cardio sessions because it won't burn your muscles away like distance running will.

As for the resistance training:
Although it is way better to join a gym because of all of the options that are available to you, it is not impossible to do things at home. You just have to be creative.

You do need to buy yourself some dumbbell weights, and if you have the money, a bench with the option to incline, and an ez bar. Then you can do all sorts of exercises for each muscle group. The only problem comes when you need to increase intensity. If you get stronger, and push-ups become too easy and your weights aren't feeling heavy any more, you have to buy more weights. This is expensive. Often times, you get way more for your money if you just find a gym and join it. It is a million times more motivating to be in a gym. When you're at home, you tend to be lazier.

As far as effective DVDs: They all work. p90x is great, but again, past a certain point, you're not able to increase the intensity any more, and the routine becomes tiresome. You just have more options in a gym.

Oh great thank you very much!

Walking will work just like any other exercise is meant to work. You will see some results. Walking does put more resistance on the legs than running. So you will see your legs shaping up. Your walking form also is important. Brisk walking with the correct form does work the core. Speed walking will give you more of a extreme workout. I find speed walking harder than running. Then of course different terrains and inclines makes a difference.

As far as belly fat, Ladies announcement!: We have more lymph nodes around the belly and leg area. That is why we pack pounds there. Your lymph nodes eliminate the toxins in your body. When there is too much, your lymph nodes go into storage mode. The area around your lymph node begin to solidify thus weight gain. And if your lymph nodes are occupied how can they elimnate pathogens? That why bigger people are more at risk of getting sick and diseases. If you find yourself having stubborn fat, diet becomes the important factor. You need to eat liver-loving foods. Your liver knows what to do with it, and overload toxins to your lymph nodes. NOTE: males have more lymph node around the belly, thus the beer belly.

Ok so i gave a biological explanation of how hard it will be to loose belly and leg fat. Studies have proved that lifting weight will not make you loose fat. That why you see fat power lifters. I can account to it actually. I was solid stacked 140 pounds. I was very strong. I could bench my own weight. I could squat doule my weight. However, i was 30% pound fat. I also know an instructor who is about 120 pounds, 5'6. Really lean. She was really strong too. about 32% body fat. We decided to change our diet. And our body fat went down to 18-19%. I also put myself on a muscle loss diet. You would think my body fat would go up or stay the same. However, it also went down. So muscle does not decrease fat. When you are weight training your metabolism is more active. More oxygen usage with break down fat (the soft fat).

So overall, i am saying, watch your diet. Use hyperatrophy strength training (12-15 reps with low weight, get the heart rate up) to lean up.

Yes u r right! I agree with you!