Walking to Lose Weight
There are plenty of different ways of getting the exercise that you need to maintain a healthy weight or to lose it if you need to, but by far one of the easiest and arguably most enjoyable is that of walking. This is something that most of us can do without even giving it a second thought, so why not make use of this simple and effective means of exercising to get the most benefit from it by putting it into practice.
There are a few things you need to know about walking to make it that much more effective as a weight loss exercise method. For starters, you can't simply take yourself off for a leisurely stroll around the block and then call that a workout! You do have to put a little more effort into it than that, but the effort is not that great and the benefits to be had from doing just a little more are well worth the effort.
Walking with Determination
When most people walk, they tend to amble along at a snail's pace not really taking much notice of what they are doing. But when you want to use this form of exercise as a powerful weight loss strategy, then more effort and determination is necessary. You have to pick up the pace to a reasonable level. It doesn't have to be so fast that you look like a demented robot, but fast enough that you find you are now taking notice of your walking more.
After just a few minutes of walking at this elevated pace, you will notice your breathing getting a little heavier and you will start sweating as your heart rate increases. This is all good, as it means you are going fast enough to make your muscles start working hard enough to be burning more energy.
Muscles Burning Energy
This is the place you want to get to and then keep it going for as long as you can. If you haven't done any exercise before this, you may want to keep it short to begin with and gradually increase the length of time and distance that you walk for each day. You want to aim for 30 minutes as a realistic minimum but the early days will probably start out at 10 minutes or so and increase daily to that figure.
Once you get to more than 20 minutes of unbroken walking at this elevated pace, your body will have used most of the available burnable sugar (glucose) present in your bloodstream and more will have to be found in order to keep your muscles fed with energy. Your body gets this from its store of fat.
Now you know why you must keep this up for a solid length of time. You want to get to the place where your body is burning fat. This is what will result in not just weight loss, but the toning and firming of your body, reducing your dress size and improving your figure!
Where is the Weight Loss?
At first, you will probably not notice any change on the scales. There is a very good reason for this and that is that muscle weight more than fat by volume and when you are walking daily at this faster pace and for longer, you will inadvertently be building muscle tissue which will displace the volume of fat you are burning. This means your weight will probably not drop to begin with, but that is not the primary reason for doing this. A slimmer figure is!
Weight loss will come as the rate of fat burned becomes more than the muscle tissue increase, which will not seem like much or may not even be apparent when you look. That's because the increase in muscle tissue is generally invisible as it tends to gain density within the body. It is only really bodybuilders that get that muscled body look because they deliberately target excessive muscle growth by heavy exercise programs coupled with a huge increase in the amount of protein rich food they consume. You will not be doing this, unless of course that is your aim.
What you will notice is your figure improving and eventually you will drop a dress size every so often as long as you keep this up on a daily basis. It goes without saying that you should combine this walking exercise with a healthy, low calorie diet for the best effect, although you will find that you need not be so restrictive with the calories when you are exercising every day.
Walking is an excellent form of exercise that is enjoyable to do. This is because it not only gets you out of the house and into the fresh air, which is always uplifting of spirit and mood enhancing in itself, but it gives you the chance to see what is happening in your neighbourhood, a chance to meet like-minded people and the satisfaction in knowing that you are doing something very positive about your health.
