I dislike any implication that ‘weight’ should be thought of as a lifetime disease that perhaps may come with the idea of continuously walking to lose weight. The real purpose is to start with walking or any other routine activity as an add on to your lifestyle that wasn’t there before, and to integrate it with such thoroughness that the benefits including but not especially ongoing weight balance, flow every day.

Also while starting with the easiest option (walking) it is by far the healthiest and most effective to continuously try out and apply differing exercise and diet techniques to add variety, for the fun factor, and to intensify calorie burning.

Keep Walking to Lose Weight does convey the fundamental premise of successful lifetime weight balance for those with chronic weight issues, that is, once started you don’t stop. You keep activity and diet conducive to weight loss. In other words it is a benefit to remember to keep walking for weight balance even though your weight is under control now.

You don’t have to continue to talk about weight issues and walking to lose weight. With the interim goal achieved it is now about having an ongoing lifestyle that supports who you want to be!

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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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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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One of the frustrations for walkers or runners is that a favorite route will go off road onto paths or byways which make the distance traveled when walking to lose weight difficult to tally. While a pedometer is an obvious answer, there is also the mapping software available at Running Map and Google GMaps Pedometer which is a similar system with the extra finesse of calculating calories burned as well.

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The starting point is always relevant when walking to lose weight.

Your starting weight, your fitness, your current level of activity.

Since the Walking to Lose Weight blog caters for the exercise-challenged and adds calorie burning rather than focusing on decreasing calories consumed, it does not mean that diet is considered irrelevant.

Responsible eating is required for successful weight loss even with the addition of walking to lose weight on a daily or thrice weekly rate.

Initial impact from adding exercise should be the loss of weight but over time one’s body acclimatizes and uses less energy for the same workout. This then requires two changes- the walking quota must increase and the diet modified to cut out obvious excess.

Tips:

1. At all times the increase in walking to lose weight should not result in higher calories eaten.

2. Drinking will need to increase to balance moisture loss but should be made up of water or low calorie drinks, or vegetable juices such as carrot. Check for the calorie information. Do not assume that a flavoured drink of any kind is low in calories unless labeled as such. Fruit juice can be very high in sugars.

3.Look at your existing diet particularly what you drink. Alcohol, sodas, fruit juices, milk drinks are generally high in calories unless made with low fat dairy products, artificial sweeteners or are unsweetened. Replace with water or other low calorie drinks.

4. Balance your food intake. Avoid cutting down on food early in the day and then becoming so hungry that you eat any and all the food you can find, later in the day.

5. Unless you have the time and willingness to shop and prepare foods which are low in calorie and fats become a low calorie shopper. Look for and sample the different low calorie versions of many foods ensuring you are never without a low calorie food option when  hungry. Try to identify those items you enjoy as snacks or meal substitutes. E.g. raw carrots, low calorie yogurts, low calorie frozen meals, low fat milk.

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Muscles weigh more than fat. As you exercise you gain muscle (weight) and lose fat. Weight alone may not indicate the positive changes in your body. As we start tracking calorie usage it is timely to remember that fat lost does not mean weight loss if muscle build up is more than the fat losses.

Overall you would probably like your body weight to be “respectable”. Be careful that you haven’t made your weight goal too low and counter to the exercised body you now have.

The Walking to Lose Weight program is a journey of increasing activity and weight loss, and it requires you to focus on the changes and their benefits beyond weight loss.

All these improvements which you are constantly experiencing carry you through the longer term aspects, ensuring that you stick with walking and exercise until and after you’ve achieved your perfect body.

As January ends look at increasing your focus on energy expenditure. However my experience suggests that this is best kept as a learning and guiding process rather than a constant calculation.

Overdoing the process monitoring can cause pressure and frustration which ultimately can undo the progress you are making. Changes may be overlooked because you are expecting them to be noticeable and large. Even if they are observable to others you may not notice them because of a lack of perspective from seeing your body daily.

Be aware enough of the process to know that it is working because you are doing everything right. Then be patient as the small increments in your routine reach a ‘tipping point’ which sees rapid weight and size reduction.

Start the 31 Ways to Losing weight Walking.

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For today prepare for the introduction of calorie burning as a guide on the final days of this Walking to Lose Weight program.

The object is to use an extra 1000 – 1500 calories a day. Any food calories reduced are also counted i.e. calories burned 1250, calories reduced 500, total calorie reduction is 1750. As one pound of fat is approximately equal to 3500 calories, if you reduced calories at that rate daily you would lose a pound every second day.

Using minutes and activity.

For those without some recording device for this purpose you must record the minutes of each activity from walking to weight lifting, and find out the energy required (calories used up) by applying one of the various charts available which indicate activities and likely calories used during its performance.

Using a pedometer.

If you have been using a pedometer to record steps, time and/or distance, you may also have a feature which uses a motion sensor to record higher intensity activity. These are set by you to note movements which are higher intensity, say moderate and above. This will then show a number for the calories burned from your activity. Higher intensity activity burns more calories.

Have you enjoyed counting steps, distance or minutes? Now we’re going to look at the recorded calories burned during daily activity using your pedometer if yours tracks this or using the many guides which estimate calories used for each action performed. Walking is an easy way to track calories. Get an idea of how many calories you have burned through a simple multiplication process of the distance walked and your weight.

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