2 hours of walking a day excessive?

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My parents were saying today how I should be walking for 2 hours a day.

Is walking 2 hours good or is that excessive in your opinion?

It's neither good nor bad. Walking 2 hours a day can be easy for some people and even harmful to others. A person can walk an hour, drink for 6 and walk home - it won't make them any healthier.

That depends on the individual.


Personally, I can do it everyday, easy.
Doesn't mean it's ideal or healthy for my body, habit or not.

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Walking is a low stress activity so I doubt that 2 hours a day would be harmful.

There may be the added benefit of improving mental health.
Many of us enjoy being alone and walking may provide that.

I can find it helpful to pull weeds in the garden which puts more burden on the body than walking.
Swinging an ax or cutting down trees is my limit to what I can do.

Those with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and ALS need to be very careful about exercise as the body's ability to recovery from injury is limited. If you have a disease or genetic disorder it is wise to consult a specialist about what your body can handle. There may be special interest groups that that have that sort of specific knowledge.
I recall folks on this forum with EDS.

Depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Since my other activities like weightlifting and cycling are limited now due to Tendinitis (getting old sucks) I have started walking more. Usually more than 2 hours a day. Sometimes 4 or more on a treadmill if I am watching a lot of TV.

If you are trying to achieve some cardio-vascular level, there probably is an optimal level. If you are trying to burn calories, the more the better. When you exceed the safe amount your body will let you know.

I doubt it would harm a reasonably healthy person much. But if it's walking purely for the exercise and you don't enjoy it or get anywhere you'd like to be, any health benefits would be offset by the simple fact that you'd be committing a big chunk of your life to something that was no fun at all. Still, if it's that boring then few people would have the will power to keep it up for more than a few days.

It also depends on how fast you walk and how much of the walking is uphill. So just prescribing 2 hours a day doesn't really mean much. I presume you're not getting any other form of significant exercise?

I try to walk a mile or so every day, fairly briskly, with a day off every 3 or 4 days or so. It often bores and annoys me because the locale is somewhat ugly and I have to cross busy roads and I notice a lot of depressing things. But given that I barely get any other exercise, I'm scared to pack it in.

In my humble opinion, walking is a good form of exercise. I am 75 years old and I generally walk around 1 hour per day. But I walk up and down a steep hill. So it is a more strenuous form of exercise. It helps to keep me both physically and mentally young and healthy.

I also like to swim and found this form of exercise to be healthy. I swim on my back and I swim a mile each time. It takes me 2 hours and I find it to be relaxing.

I hate walking. Mainly because I have a permanent limp because I have nerve damage. 2 hours a day wouldn't really be of any benefit to me but a lot of people do get benefit from walking.

Walking for 2 hours a day can be good if you stick to a healthy diet.

Apparently walking is the best exercise for fat loss. It uses the appropriate fuel pathway for that activity. But I read that is the case for about a max of 90 minutes. At this point, the body supposedly switches to another fuel source. So it's recommended that if a person wants to continue walking to lose weight, they should rest after 90 minutes, long enough for the body to reset.

The point being that desired outcome has a part to play in deciding if walking is healthy or not.

Apart from fat loss concerns, the 'walk 10 000 steps per day' idea is apparently close to the mark. In general, it's recommended for those who live a sedentary lifestyle to get up from the chair and walk every half hour.

Personally, I have a pedometer on my phone and I aim for 10 000 steps per day.