If you are ready to tone up and burn calories the I believe the Stepper is the right choice.
Long before the spin bikes and elliptical trainers existed, the trusty stepper was in full force right next to the treadmill. You may be too young to remember Jane Fonda with her aerobic workouts, well.. steppers were just as big.
For the past decade people have gone outside to find their stair fix, but again that takes time and weather permitting. More and more people are turning to the stepper and the convenience of doing it all at home. With the lower body being toned up, the real results come from the huge calorie consumption that comes with climbing stairs. With way more benefits than walking and way less impact than running, the stepper increases your workouts to be a more anaerobic-burning up more stored energy than being aerobic which is using oxygen for energy and it is the energy system we are using when we run.
The thing with fat loss is that when you are exercising to burn fat you want the most effective method. This means that your heart rate and breathing must be at a certain level. If you are breathing too hard, you are using oxygen and shared stored energy, this is being aerobic. You need to be doing this for over an hour to burn up enough stored energy to get a good fat burning result. If you are on the stepper you can keep your heart rate stead at about 120 BPM and your breathing steady and not heavy. This means your body is using mainly stored energy and take less time to burn more fat.
There are so many benefits I could tell you about like great functional movements of the hip and knee, not to mention a better range of motion than walking. Men and women have used the stepper for years to get lean for bodybuilding or physique competitions. If the professionals use them, then I'm pretty sure it will work for you too.
If you are ready to tone up and burn calories the I believe the Stepper is the right choice.