Video Recap

I get a lot of questions about walking 6 miles a day. So I made this video to address the most frequently asked questions. If you prefer to read instead of watch, here are the questions and answers below:

Q: How long does it take to walk 6 miles?

A: It takes me about 2 hours, because I walk at a slow and steady pace, about 3 miles per hour.

Q: Couldn’t you burn a lot more calories if you walked faster?

A: I would burn more calories in the short term. However, I know from experience that I do not enjoy walking fast. I don’t like huffing and puffing. I truly enjoy my walks at a slow and steady pace. This keeps me doing my 6 miles a day consistently over time. Therefore, I feel like in the long run I wouldn’t be burning as many calories if I walked faster, simply because I would not stick with it. See Derek Sivers post here about relaxing for the same result.

Q: How big is your house?

A: In the beginning of my weight loss journey, I walked inside my house. The range of sizes for the various houses we lived in during those years was 1400-1900 square feet. However, most of the time I was walking in the master bedroom, which was only about 120 square feet on average. Now I’m a full time RVer, so I generally hike outside. However, when the weather is too stormy outside, I walk in my class C RV, which is a total of 31 feet long. I just pace back and forth. No excuses.

Q: How many steps is 6 miles?

A: According to my fitbit and my stride length, it’s 14,000 steps. Your count may differ based on your stride length.

Q: How do you motivate yourself to do this every day?

A: Several things:

• It’s mainly about keeping my word to myself. I read a book called The Richest Man in Babylon by George S Clason (Or listen to the Richest Man in Babylon for free with your free 30 day trial of Audible) The part that stood out to me was the idea that you have to become the type of person who, if you say, “I will throw a pebble into the river every day,” you do it, every day. If you forget, you retrace your steps and you throw the pebble. You do not throw a handful of pebbles to be done with it either. You just throw the pebble every single day. And that’s what I do. I walk my 6 miles every day. If it’s late at night and I haven’t gotten them in, I walk late at night. I don’t walk 3 miles one day and 9 the next to “catch up.” It’s 6 miles every day.
• I feel so good when I get my steps in. It’s almost impossible to be in a bad mood after you’ve walked 6 miles.
• 6 miles feels like a big accomplishment, even now.
• In the beginning, walking was a way that I reinforced my intermittent fasting habit. It gave me something to do instead of eat. And then conversely, because I was walking 6 miles, it helped me to want to stick to intermittent fasting more, because I was putting that effort out.
• I can control my steps. I can’t control my daily weight fluctuations, but I can control whether I get my steps in or not. It’s empowering to have that control.

Q: Isn’t it boring?

A: To me, it’s a choice. But in the beginning I did bribe myself with Amazon video. Eventually I started listening to podcasts. Recently my husband has started walking with me, which is really awesome because we’re walking and talking for 2 hours. There are other ways to make it more exciting:

• Talk on the phone (I don’t really like talking on the phone, but I occasionally will use my walking time to catch up with people in my life who do like it).
• Surf social media
• Be productive: make business calls, check email, (I work out what I’m going to say in these videos while I walk)

Q: How many calories does it burn?

A: I’ve seen a rule of thumb that says 100 calories per mile, but your pace, the terrain, your weight and age all go into a more accurate calculation. According to a calorie burn calculator I used, I’m burning about 400-450 calories when I walk 6 miles based on my weight and pace.

Q: Did you go straight from being sedentary to walking 6 miles every day?

A: No. I think most reasonably healthy individuals have the ability to go from sedentary to walking 6 miles. It’s not an incredible physical feat. I went from sedentary to being able to walk 10,000 steps. But I wasn’t consistent in the beginning. I did eventually set my goal higher and higher, and eventually got to 14,000 steps. I’d recommend first working on consistency at a lower step goal, then working your way up in the step count goal.

Q: Why did you choose 6 miles?

A: I read an article where a celebrity trainer recommended moving 3 miles a day for weight loss, so I figured that since I was a) going to walk at a slow and steady pace and b) I believed I had a slow metabolism, I should double that. And since I found my plan worked, I just continued to stick with it.

Check out my books!

The Laid Back Guide to Intermittent Fasting. In that book I share the way I practice intermittent fasting, and what my overall journey looked like. (To view all the retailers this book is available at, click this link.)

The Laid Back Guide to Intermittent Fasting Workbook. This workbook is the companion to The Laid Back Guide to Intermittent Fasting. I walk with you on your weight loss journey, from setting your goal weight, all the way to the day you see that magic number on the scale, to what to do to keep it off for the rest of your life in maintenance. The activities in this workbook are based on my lived experience of my 80-pound weight loss journey with intermittent fasting.

Overcoming Weight Loss Obstacles: How to Keep Going When Things Get Difficult. That book goes into more depth about the difficult parts of weight loss, such as facing the fears associated with losing weight, how to handle self-sabotage, and dealing with body image issues.

The Laid Back Guide to Weight Loss Maintenance. This book takes you through the weight loss maintenance journey, step by step.