Hi Charles,
Thank you for your comment. Based on what you’ve provided, you appear to be both acclimatised to the current temperatures in which you’re exercising and reasonably trained (accustomed) to your current walking speed of 3.3 mph. I think your main concerns would be to ensure that you: 1) are properly hydrated and fueled before exercise; 2) carry sufficient water with you while on your walks; and 3) pay attention to any changes in your environment (re: sudden temperature changes, weather, etc). Assuming no underlying medical issues which might be worsened by the heat, then I’d imagine you’d be ok to carry on with your current exercise routine. Hope this helps. Keep up the good work.

You’re not going to see large changes in body composition in just one week. By starting exercise, you likely increased your weight due to storing carbohydrate in your muscles (called glycogen). You also would have some water bound to that glycogen. So while you increased in scale weight, it’s unlikely that you put on fat. Keep up with your exercise and in time you’ll see a decrease in both your body fat and scale weight.

The fuel source during exercise isn’t necessarily THE most important factor since if you create a calorie deficit from exercise, your body will eventually pull fat out of storage to justify the difference. Three hours is probably overkill, but an hour or so would be considered long duration compared to just a quick 5 or 10 minute warm up on the bike.

And also what is considered a long duration? How long is long enough for someone to lose weight? I have a friend who thinks she needs to work out for 3+ hours at a time.

Thanks for the great articles; I’m learning so much! Keep it up!