"The health benefits of physical activity are generally independent of body weight. The good news for people needing to lose weight is that regular physical activity provides major health benefits, no matter how their weight changes over time. Along with appropriate dietary intake, physical activity is an important part of maintaining healthy weight, losing weight, and keeping extra weight off once it has been lost. Physical activity also helps reduce abdominal fat and preserve muscle during weight loss. Adults should aim for a healthy, stable body weight. The amount of physical activity necessary to achieve this weight varies greatly from person to person. The first step in achieving or maintaining a healthy weight is to meet the minimum level of physical activity in the Guidelines. For some people, this will result in a stable and healthy body weight, but for many it may not. People who are at a healthy body weight but slowly gaining weight can either gradually increase the level of physical activity, toward the equivalent of 300 minutes a week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity, or reduce caloric intake, or both, until their weight is stable. By regularly checking body weight, people can find the amount of physical activity that works for them. Many adults will need to do more than the 150 minutes a week of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity as part of a program to lose weight or keep it off. These adults should do more physical activity and/or further reduce their caloric intake. Some people will need to do the equivalent of 300 or more minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity a week to meet their weight-control goals. Combined with restricting caloric intake, these adults should gradually increase minutes or the intensity of aerobic physical activity per week, to the point at which the physical activity is effective in achieving a healthy weight. Adults should strongly consider walking as one good way to get aerobic physical activity. Many studies show that walking has health benefits and a low risk of injury. It can be done year-round and in many settings. It is important to remember that all activities—both baseline and physical activity—“count” for energy balance. Active choices, such as taking the stairs rather than the elevator or adding short episodes of walking to the day, are examples of activities that can be helpful in weight control. For weight control, vigorous-intensity activity is far more time-efficient than moderate-intensity activity. For example, an adult who weighs 165 pounds (75 kg) will burn 560 calories from 150 minutes of brisk walking at 4 miles an hour; these calories are in addition to the calories normally burned by a body at rest. That person can burn the same number of additional calories in 50 minutes by running 5 miles at a 10-minutes-per-mile pace."