Jul 29

Walking to lose weight is a wonderful way for me to stay connected to my overall desire to lead a fit and happy lifestyle. I use this blog and others to express my joy at finding a way that I can be embracing of a fun and easy to lose weight lifestyle, and maintain that loss without having a stop/start mentality. That is, move on from treating weight loss as special occasion behavior without modifying my thoughts, feelings and behaviors.

As part of this process I have developed an approach that is about making it fun to be living a life of wellness and healthy vitality.

Walking to lose weight encourages daily appreciation of your life. Walking almost forces you be positive and look around you. It is a genuine alternative to Valium and meditation. It has major stress relief benefits.

This is the best way for those juggling several areas of stress and worry in their life to consciously work on one area-health or weight loss- and also help in other areas. Walking to lose weight becomes a pivotal tactic for resolving much of the tension in your life.

This is an all embracing use of Walking to Lose Weight to cover activity of all sorts and those who are currently seeking to lose weight and those who have reached their body weight goals. If you need to change your activity levels substantially i.e. over an extended period of time, say longer than one year, to lose the weight, than you need a lifestyle change.

Walking must become a part of your lifestyle, and other exercise activities are also helpful for creating variety and specific results.

Weight loss becomes integrated into your daily life schedule. This then continues once the weight is lost or desired size achieved.

With walking to lose weight as a lifestyle, lots of fun ways to appreciate the essential nature of activity in your life are helpful. You might like to tweet your steps or thoughts while walking, or find us on Facebook at Walking to Lose Weight.

If you like the worldview of Walking to Lose Weight and you would like to subscribe click on the link below. Find me on Twitter @walk2loseweight and on Facebook.

Look out for my new ebook- a free excerpt will be available soon.

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Jun 18

A way to make a walking to lose weight and an exercise for fitness program work for me has been to make it an equal part of my lifestyle as other important aspects. While weight loss is often at the back of the  mind of many of us it isn’t always a part of the activity or task schedule of our daily lives. It tends to be an add-on process. It takes off at certain times and then retreats back into obscurity when other more pressing (on some scale)needs or goals take over.

One way this reveals itself as a disadvantage is when you have actually been successful. The relaxing of your desire i.e. goals around weight loss and the tasks or focus required to achieve the original goal, often means a return to the exact behavior which caused the problem in the first place, such as lack of exercise or  poor diet and food consumption habits.

It is likely that you have lost weight successfully before. Often times it is a lack of ability to continue the behavior which caused the weight loss which triggers the return of excess weight. To use a trivial example, say your house is generally comfortable but messy. Your mother-in-law is coming and you want to make a good impression so a spring clean is underway. You could even say to yourself as you appreciate how nice it feels to be in a cleaned house with the sunshine and flowers creating a cozy effect: ‘This is the way I want it to be always.’  Yet with the mother-in-law gone (and she lives far away) and the kids come home and don’t understand your new desire for order and cleanliness, soon you’ve forgotten you had any other goal then to tidy up for a particular occasion.The same applies to diet and exercise aimed at one goal-weight loss- without embedding the desire into your lifestyle.

Walking for weight  loss and activity for its own sake adds value to your life in many ways. Eating in filling yet healthy ways also adds to a sense of caring and looking after ourselves and our bodies which also feels good.

Counting calories or pedometer steps are ways to systematize a balanced diet and regular exercise into your lifestyle. Walking to lose weight is a lifestyle choice which lends itself to activity as a matter of course. While other  exercise options are still necessary because variety is important, the advantage of walking is its ability to fit into most lifestyles with ease, and making it easy is instrumental to weight loss success.

Walking to lose weight becomes an attitude pervasive enough that once established it has its own  momentum and replaces the need to consciously choose to diet or exercise.

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Jun 13

When I talk about walking to lose weight as a lifestyle and the wonderful life benefits it can bring, it doesn’t translate for certain people-and honestly, they’re the people who most need to know this!

If you don’t understand how good it feels to live in an exercised body it probably means you have never done it and doubt the result.

The exercise and gym fan with the appropriate clothes and early start, is hooked on something. It is the natural high of endorphins and the benefits of feeling good. Feeling good can have a major influence on your lifestyle as you choose to enjoy it!

Walking to lose weight as a lifestyle embodies those who wish to have a life full of every day joys in the best way possible. Most adults do not get daily exercise and this can lead to health and weight problems in the long term. Having a diversion from your main daily focus whether family or work is also healthy, a way to relax from the peculiar stresses of your main life.

The more of an asset walking becomes in your lifestyle the more weight loss results. Eventually you will forget that the reason why you started walking to lose weight and do it for the many positive aspects it brings into your life.

To start feeling better about your body is a good way to get the right mindset for weight loss.

Think of your new body as you might an impressive loved one. Admire the willingness to do the best it can; its ability to perform at a new level and on an ongoing basis; thank your body by looking after it and responding to its needs. This is not an inventory of faults but encouragement and solutions. Identify when help is needed but be a supporter not an inhibitor. Over worry or in fact worry of any kind is a burden. Appropriate concern encourages finding solutions not giving up.

Be a guardian angel-make walking to lose weight a way to  ’enlighten’ your body!


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Jun 9

Walking, as a lifestyle, has lots of contemporary significance (green,conservation, fitness, health) and may seem extreme as a metaphor for fulfilling your lifestyle desires in other areas. Walking to lose weight seems even narrower with the assumption that this is a weight loss concept. The new walker is different.

The new Walking to Lose Weight is about the lifestyle skills learned from adapting your way of life for health, fitness and joie de vivre.

I’m writing from this perspective. Studies reveal that the behavior such as exercise and eating style required to lose weight is the basic behavior required to keep it off.

The original impetus for me to start was walking to lose weight. This process of integrating walking and pedometer steps into my lifestyle turned out to be a significant change to my  approach to life.

This blog, and others, enabled me to use the turnaround process I had developed elsewhere for my own well being benefit. If you have read since the beginning of this blog, August 2008, you may have noticed a new emphasis develop. It really was a personal attempt to make walking a consistent part of my life. Over time I moved from the regulation technical and fact oriented regurgitation of well established (although not undisputed) theories of weight loss. I realized that more than that was required and it had a lot to do with how I viewed my life and the world as I saw it.

OK that’s a big jump, and there are a lot of steps in between. I hope to make the leap easy for you.

Lifestyle change is not easy when it is voluntary. It allows wobbling, changing your mind, not taking the harder decision, getting confused along the way.

We (humans) seem to feel better with a simple answer, such as change only one aspect and get the whole problem resolved. This makes it seem achievable. This is good. If you don’t start with enthusiasm it is even harder to change.

Walking as a weight loss process tends to be the preferred option for those with issues around exercise and maybe diet.

It is so simple to make the time and do it. But then it requires doing more to continue the weight loss impact. Then it requires solving issues such as injuries or stress, tiredness, time conflicts. And doing it every day seems harder than you thought. Why is that?

Walking for weight loss and using the 10000 steps program for instance, requires a considerble lifestyle adaption.

It means looking for support from people other then friends and family or in addition to them because their goals may not complement yours that well.

It can be done; but it requires a period of time to blossom into its full potential as little bit by little bit you find your issues are resolved and some even disappear.

OK now it is practically possible but what’s this?

Sometimes you don’t feel like it. Sometimes you’re distracted, bored, off color.

What do you do then?

One day or even two doesn’t matter…unless you give up and decide its too hard, you’re not up to it, it works for others but not for me.

Keeping to a lifestyle change which is voluntary, and most of us prefer our changes to be of this type, requires more of something we don’t always have consistently over long periods and that is unfailing enthusuasm.

This is no different to other issues within our lifestyles that we know we can change for the better… but it seems too hard, others disagree, maybe it isn’t possible… Your lifestyle at the moment probably grew over time with changes integrated haphazardly until now it is what it is and mostly it seems unchangeable. Inertia has set in and the momentum is towards keeping it going in the same way.

Any lifestyle change of significance, done over time, requires a perseverance and positive attitude. There is a transition necessary and if this process is seen as failure than you may give up before the success you so desired.

Dramatic changes such as the sudden onset of illness or winning the lottery are quick disruptions to old patterns but dealing with, or coping with them in your life, takes time for the new adaptations to be comfortable

Longer term processes such as weight loss require these adaption tasks ahead of the overt change.

Necessary now is a way of thinking and attitude to support the change.

Weight loss is an example of life style change. Another example is starting a home business.

Now we’re getting to the connection to your personal and world views.

Having what it takes to make and then keep to these changes requires a mental and emotional outlook which keeps you up for it.

These abilities are distinct to the individual but exist in each of us. Whether we can access them depends on our own limits and aspirations. That is your world view and your attitude to life.

This is a big concept for some and a non-issue for others. My work life involves mentoring those who would like me to help them make the connection to making the big changes over time.

I will continue writing abut the connection your view of the world has to your success.

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Jun 1

Alternatives for Walking to Lose Weight can come from your book shelves or DVD collection, the Wii or just wet weather gear!

Recently I was putting on the Leslie Sansone walking DVD for the third time in a few days and felt, let’s say,…hesitant. How many times can I do it in a row without getting bored? Especially since I’d misplaced the 3 mile walk and was doing the 2 mile. (I’m packing up the house ready for selling.)

As usually happens when I’m reluctant to do something when I get started it feels much better than I expected. However knowing that I really wanted an extended walk made me put extra effort into the 30 minute walking to lose weight program. The 3 mile walk is high intensity and I really know that the guided DVD walk is more calorie burning than my regular one hour, because you follow  four different types of steps in this home version some of which you’d be unlikely to do exposed in the outside world. Knee lifts, kicks, sideways moves and, of course, weights.

This time with the 2 mile walk I threw myself into the “walk”once the warm up was over. I did it all at a high energy pace and ended up with some floor exercises including push ups. I surprised myself with how much I enjoyed the exercise even though it was only another walking to lose weight DVD.

Then today I went for a walk in the sunshine and perfect sky when all of a sudden black clouds appeared and a little while later a drenching shower made me very, very wet! Unable to do much about it and without an umbrella or rain gear, I simply walked quickly along my walking route. I reasoned that as it was not cold, and I had on my Goretex trainers (I highly recommend these for wet ground) it was better that I simply accept the conditions and get the most out of my walking circumstances.

This is it folks! By accepting the challenges of walking for weight loss it really works. The answer to how to make it work is to make it joyful work.

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