First it is just great you are looking to do some walking or running on a treadmill of some sort. All exercise is good to do when you want to start blowing away those calories! (Wouldn’t it be just great if that was all it took – just BLOW THEM AWAY We wish!)

As much as we would like to agree with the other answers you are receiving here, we cannot. For a pretty simple reason.

Calorie burn off is a function of the amount of work that goes into the process for sure. What is often overlooked though is that doing so takes a significant amount of work. Typically a calorie burn off really only starts in a good way after about 45 minutes of continuous walking at a brisk pace. You can read a bit more about this in our Fitness Walking 2 program in the first link below*. You will see there that the calorie burn part only really starts when you are walking 45-60 minutes a day, five days a week.

Either choice of machine will provide you the opportunity to lose weight IF you pay attention to the core stuff that really gets the job done – work effort, time and diet. They all sort of go hand in hand.

The main difference for a longer workout time would be that the manual one would change pace as you did where. The motorized one would require you to change a control switch on it. This may not be an issue either if you consider the better treadmills that you can program to suit your pacing, change of rate and so on.

You don’t mention whether your choice of treadmill would be driven by convenience, availability or budget. If you just using one in a gym then that is not an issue. If you are considering buying one you may wish to check out the second link below. We cover a lot of the pros, cons, features and benefits to look for when walking on tread mills in the second link below.

What might be really helpful for you is to consider looking at a bit more complete program so you can benefit if the most effective way for you. Maybe check out our overview page on Fitness Walking Programs too – the third link below.

Good luck with your efforts Hannah. If we can be of further help please feel free to contact us through our website

*We have an information website helping folks get fit again just by walking. This includes overcoming surgeries, injuries, pains and so on. While our focus is on a little older walker, all of the information applies to anyone choosing to give it a try!