My consultant has emphasized walking and calorie counting. He reckons that 10,000 steps a day (= 5 miles) will maintain your weight but for consistent weight loss to aim for 15,000 steps a day. I've found that 10-12,000 steps will produce consistent weight loss. And the beauty of it is that you don't have to bust a gut doing it. For me it's not about the speed but the distance.
The other thing is calories. If I stick to 850-1,000 kcal per day I'm guaranteed weight loss. Check out the energy expenditure formula (you'll need your BMR). I can predict within 0.5lb how much weight I will lose that week.
What they don't tell you though is it takes tremendous discipline. I didn't realise just how much the band would force me to change my lifestyle - getting up earlier to exercise!, swapping coffee for Water (yuk), eating when not hungry (a foreign concept) and remembering to drink before I eat (socially something that is very difficult to explain away).
The band is a great tool that we have to work with, otherwise it's just a pain in the stomach
