Walking To Lose Weight

When walking to lose weight it is well to remember that generally you should walk each day unless you are exhausted from the continued exercise and it affects your abilities during the day. Then you should take up to two days off a week.

If your results go the other way and even with a regular daily walking to lose weight schedule your weight loss has plateaued then you need to shake up your schedule in another way. The energy (calories) used from any particular exercise changes over time as the body’s muscles adapts to the process and economizes on the number of calories burned. Initially this is compensated for by increasing the amount of time and distance of walking. Total calories burned increases.

Eventually, however, you will meet the maximum time commitment you are able to make and at this stage when your walking for weight loss schedule needs intensifying then several options are available to you.

1. Increase the intensity of the walking you do by adding hills, steps, weights or intermittent running. Another way to increase the intensity of an hour’s walking to lose weight would be to do a high intensity walking DVD such as those from Leslie Sansone or  Kathy Smith’s Power Walk.
2. Break up your standard program with exercise groups such as aerobic step classes.
3. Use an activity  monitor which measures not only steps throughout the day but also the level of exertion during those steps. This enables you to increase the number of movements done at the higher level intensity rather than the lower end of your walking to lose weight.
4. Have a ‘bootcamp’ period of one or two weeks when you try different forms of exercise, such as boxing, aerobic dance, etc.

Remember that walking to lose weight on a smooth surface such as a path can allow you to walk at a brisker pace. Walking on natural terrain can increase the calorie burn though if your feet must grip, divert directions, go up and down inclines, change balance etc. Walking on a treadmill does not require the natural push off needed when walking normally. However you can walk faster, increase the incline and run for intervals.

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When walking to lose weight needs some extra spice in it to keep the interest and enjoyment alive you could try aerobic dancing (which burns approximately 500 calories an hour) and doesn’t require much more than walking to lose weight when starting out.

I’ve written about Nintendo Wii’s Just Dance! previously and it’s great for fun and burning calories but the truth is that just as with walking, to get started on an aerobic dancing exercise program nothing much is needed.

First requirement is somewhere to dance. This is simply space enough to move and wave your arms, in front of the bedroom mirror is a popular option.

Second requirement is great music. A good beat is important but it can range from drumming to disco.

Just as when walking for weight loss exercise, the right attitude is important. Start with ten minutes and see how your body feels the next day. Add more as your body can take it.

Walking to lose weight is fantastic for the lower body mainly the legs. Moving your arms in a natural swing keeps the joints flexible. Add weights and the arm muscles get a workout.

What walking to lose weight cannot do normally is use those abdominals.

This is where dancing to lose weight can shine!

Use Latin style dance movements, hula or twists to trim this area of your body.

Latin dancers, male and female, have the most beautiful bodies.

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Walking to lose weight is still a favorite way to exercise for weight loss as its so practical and has lots of other benefits but I am continuing from a previous post about my new delight in Just Dance! the Wii dance game which shows an animated professional dancer to follow as best you can, and aerobically exercise and gain points for getting it right.

The crux of the weight loss exercise argument is always about calories burned. Aerobic or fat burning exercise produces more calories burned in a shorter time than walking. Once I have a certain level of fitness which can sustain faster or more intense exercise without causing undue restriction to ongoing activities (the easiest way to derail an exercise program is to overdo it and force quit ) then walking to lose weight can be supplemented with very effective calorie burning for those occasions when walking for an hour is not an option for me.

Just Dance! for an hour would probably burn 500+ calories. Walking at a brisk pace would burn around 300. Time vs effort is the equation!

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Once you’ve started walking to lose weight and have actually remembered to do it regularly the best way to increase weight loss is to increase the calories burned walking, by adding variety with interval and power walking. However there are many ways to add to the calories burned and increase the other advantages which come from exercising your body.

Walking to lose weight outside offers the potential opportunity to do other exercises. Recently I was walking in a park with a friend-we were walking for weight loss as were many other people who were there-and discovered that the park had an outdoor gym with some interesting gym-type equipment. It was fun and added some more intense muscle exercises and a diversion to our walk.

When in a park or grassy area which lends itself to sport or activity it is more comfortable to do some exercises which wouldn’t look right in your suburban street. However you could do them at your house at the end of the walking for weight loss, or with the Wii.

My suggestion today is to add lunges -doing a set of 10 every half mile or 500 meters. They could be walking lunges or stationary.

Always allow your body particualry the leg muscles to warm up before lunging, and if you haven’t done them for a while or are new to them start gently and judge how your legs are coping before intensifying.

For far too many years I couldn’t ‘do’ lunges. For some reason the lunge fairy hadn’t stood on my shoulder and sprinkled the fairy dust and I reluctantly lunged. In case you had the same errors in your thinking as I did I will pass on my new way of doing lunges which now gets me rated as ‘very good’.

To lunge:

Stand with your feet slightly apart and take one leg back behind, with the heel of this foot off the ground and the toes on the ground and flexed, balancing and taking the weight.

The front knee must not come over the toes when bent so move the back leg further back if this is the case.

The ‘lunge’ is bending the front knee as the back knee moves towards the ground.

Stability comes from the placement of the back leg- not too close or they are impopssible to do, or too far back and balance is lost. Try until you can keep balanced while doing the lunge down and back up.

Don’t worry if your back knee doesn’t seem to go too far down at first. Unless you have a mirror it is hard to tell just how far you are getting that back knee down.

Walking to Lose Weight Hints:

1. The important leg in this exercise is the back one. Focus on dropping that back knee rather than bending the front one.

2. When taking the leg back, think ‘balance’ rather than taking a direct line backwards. It may be easier for you to take your back foot off line a few inches. Avoid going so far as to require your body to twist when you are lunging.

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This Christmas as we all take stock and decide, consciously or otherwise- sometimes the decision is through focus and positivity, or it can be unconscious awareness that we have eaten and moved less over these few days, to “do something” about the extra pounds gained, walking to lose weight will easily be a popular choice on the exercise front. In this technical era, when innovation and design improvements are mandatory, even walking for weight loss can be taken to the next generation, however.

I am looking for ideas to add to and improve my walking experience. It seems that there is a constant stream of ideas from walking accessories, Iphone applications, and medical research to the latest fad nutritional supplement.

Each New Year we tend to look at the coming year and focus on some aspect of life, maybe very specifically-I’ll take the dog for an hour walk every day- to the general, such as using all the latest “help” available to continue the walking to lose weight program. This is an ongoing commitment to walking to lose weight as it is a lifestyle change into an active person for you.

One way to keep the attention on walking for weight loss is to ensure fresh ideas overlaid on the basics.

The two new ideas to grab my attention for 2010 are the iPhone apps such as Weight Watchers and the chili supplement which has incorporated calorie burning by metabolism enhancement.

iPhone:

I am a big pedometer fan and find the low tech versions to be fantastic for those starting out with walking to lose weight. If you like to play with a bit more technique however a more advanced version such as the one mentioned on the right could be more to your liking. The sales link is to my Amazon affiliate account.

The various iPhone apps with every weight loss concept covered are enticing. Sometimes this can be an illusion, especially if the technical side is not a joy to you. There is not a way for the iPhone to magically cause weight loss or do the walk for you. I am considering it, not as a specific weight loss tool, but the technical side requires some commitment on my part.

Chili

Protective encapsulation protects one’s stomach from inflammation and the supplement increases calories burned without walking, etc. I’m not sure why this is supposed to happen.

However 2010 is the year for new and fresh ideas for walking to lose weight and weight loss for me.

Anyone wishing to make comments on the Iphone for weight loss, or the chili supplement are welcome.

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