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One session of brisk walking per week can help shed as much fat as three weekly workouts, a new study suggests.
Researchers found the benefits of one brisk walking session for body fat and heart health were comparable to splitting bursts of the same exercise across three days.
The scientists, from the University of Hong Kong, looked specifically at interval walking – a workout that involves very fast walking interspersed with short periods of rest.
The four-month trial studied 315 adults with abdominal obesity – the dangerous buildup of deep visceral fat around the stomach and abdomen.
Visceral fat harms health more than fat on the arms or legs because it surrounds vital organs and raises the risk of heart disease, diabetes and other major illnesses.
In the study, participants were assigned to one of three groups. One group completed one 75-minute session of walking interval training a week for the study period.
Another group split the 75-minute session into three workouts across the week, while another acted as a control group and did no exercise.
The researchers measured body fat using a bone density scan, which gives an accurate measurement of fat-to-muscle ratio.
One session of brisk walking per week may help cut body fat and boost fitness nearly as much as three weekly workouts
The scientists measured total body fat mass, body fat percentage and waist circumference three times: before participants started the study, immediately afterwards, and then again four months after it ended.
The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, found that at the 16-week assessment, both interval training groups showed similar improvement.
This suggests that total exercise volume may matter more than how that exercise is spread across the week.
There were no significant changes in blood pressure or cholesterol, which the authors think may be because participants’ levels were already fairly normal at the start.
Waistline reductions persisted for at least four months after the exercise programme ended, although the fat-loss and weight-loss advantages had largely faded by that point.
Researchers concluded that once-weekly interval training may be a feasible and effective alternative for people who struggle to fit multiple exercise sessions into their schedules.
Professor Parco Siu Ming-fai, the study’s lead researcher at the University of Hong Kong, said: ‘While thrice-weekly interval training remains a commonly recommended approach for the therapeutic management of obesity, our findings show that once-weekly interval training offers similar benefits and represents a practical exercise strategy.
‘For many adults with central obesity who struggle to balance work, study, family and other commitments, time constraints are a primary barrier to exercising multiple days per week.’
‘Instead of relying solely on high-frequency exercise prescriptions, once-weekly interval training can be considered a feasible and effective alternative.’
An estimated 66 per cent of adults in the UK are classified as either overweight or living with obesity.
Obesity is linked to serious health risks including type 2 diabetes, heart disease and breathing problems, and costs the NHS more than £11 billion a year, alongside wider losses from reduced productivity and welfare spending.
The NHS recommends adults do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity per week, such as brisk walking.
