Walking for weight loss: yes, done the right way.

Ten at night, and you check your phone: today's steps are the car park to your desk and back. You wonder whether walking really helps you lose weight, or is just advice for people who avoid the gym.

It does. It's also the lever the business owners and managers I work with undervalue most. You can do it in a suit, between meetings.

Does walking help you lose weight?

Yes. It burns energy daily and helps keep blood sugar in check after meals. It works on four conditions.

• Every day. The week's total matters more than one long Sunday walk.
• At a brisk pace. A slow stroll past shop windows burns little.
• With two strength sessions a week. Weights give your muscle a reason to stay while the fat comes off.
• With your plate in order. Much of the result is decided at the table.

How much a walk really burns

Less than you'd hope, taken one outing at a time. Even a long walk usually comes to a few hundred calories, and a kilo of fat holds about seven thousand. On its own, then, it shifts little.

Your day outweighs the gym. Stand up and walk, and you spend about four times the energy you do sitting. Hour after hour, for many people everyday movement burns more energy than training.

On a diet, your body makes you move less. Without you noticing: more lifts, a slower stride. In people who have lost at least a tenth of their weight, that saving averages around four hundred calories a day. So when you eat less, count your steps.

After a meal, sugar goes to your muscles. Muscle is the tissue that clears the most sugar from your blood after eating. If it's working then, less is left to store.

Does walking reduce belly fat? Your body decides where it starts. That said, deep fat around your middle usually responds sooner than fat on hips and thighs.

How to walk for weight loss

How many steps a day to lose weight? Start with seven to eight thousand. That's your daily base of movement, which everything else rests on, rather than a weight-loss target. The benefit for how long you live keeps rising up to there, and ten thousand is a bonus. Build up gradually from your weekly average.

The pace: brisk. You can talk in full sentences but would struggle to sing. At that pace your body draws heavily on fat; get out of breath and it leans more on sugar. And the same steps, shuffled with your eyes on your phone, burn less.

Ten to fifteen minutes after lunch and dinner. Straight from the table, before the desk or the sofa. That's when your muscles have most sugar to take up.

In the morning, outdoors. Before breakfast your insulin is low and your body turns to fat more readily. You also get the daylight that wakes you, as I explain in the article on early mornings.

Built into your diary. Take screen-free calls walking. Walk between nearby meetings and use the stairs.

Check today's steps now. If you're short, comfortable shoes and ten minutes round the block. Tomorrow after lunch, do it again.