Walking - The Great and Easy Exercise

by Heather Long | More from this Blogger

06 May 2008 01:41 PM

Walking is one of the best exercises you can do. Why, you may ask? Because you do it every day. You do it when you get out of bed in the morning. You do it to go out and pick up the paper. You do it to get to the car and from the car. You walk all the time and if you can appreciate your legs and the beauty of walking is that you can do it anywhere, anytime and the only equipment you need is a comfortable pair of shoes.

Walking and Weight Loss

Walking is a cardiovascular exercise. Adding just 30 minutes of walking to your everyday schedule can help you tone muscle, burn fat and strengthen your heart. As regular readers of my blog will know, I have a treadmill at home and I adore it. Occasionally I find myself wishing I had an elliptical machine, but I go back to my treadmill time and time and time again.

You can burn excess weight through a walking program, especially if you maintain a brisk pace and get your heart rate up. Just walking alone may not be enough to burn off the pounds all at once, but regular walking will increase the amount of calories you burn every day.

For example, if you walk 30 minutes a day for every day of this month, you would likely burn 1 to 2 pounds in the first couple of weeks and 2 to 3 pounds in the last couple of weeks for a total of around 5 pounds. This assumes that you are walking at a brisk pace for 30 minutes, drinking plenty of water and not eating a diet high in excess calories, fats or carbs.

My Favorite Routine

When I was first getting started with my walking program and whenever I need to resume it after an absence whether due to illness or other cause, I do the following:

1) Set the treadmill to a 2.4 speed to warm up. 2) Increase to 2.6 after 1 minute, then 2.8, then 3.0 and continuing the incremental increases for every minute until I am at 3.6 3) After 1 minute at 3.6 I drop the speed back to 2.4 and continue this pattern until I have completed 3 sets of these for a total of 21 minutes. The great thing about these incremental increases is that they keep your body from getting 'comfortable' and push your muscles to keep up. 4) After a few days of this routine, you can spend longer periods in the increments or you can switch up again to use the incline for your incremental increases.

The best part of walking is that it's flexible. What do you like about walking?

Learn more about Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago.

View Full Profile | More from this Blogger

AlysonReddick (5) 25 May 2008 10:44 PM

I could not agree more, Heather. Walking is so easy to do! I try to get as many steps into my day as possible by parking in the furthest spot in the supermarket parking lot just to get a few more steps in. But lunchtime is the best time for me to get 45-50 minutes of walking. With a good stride, I get a nice amount of aerobic steps for cardio. Plus, I found a great site that really motivates me to walk every day. It's called BeeWell Miles (www.beewellmiles.com). It's got tools that help me calculate how many calories I am burning from my walking, log my meals to know how many calories I am taking in, and an activity meter so I can see how the calories out offset the calories in. It really shows me that walking helps me burn a good amount of calories.

Angel Lynn Diamond (224) 10 Mar 2009 07:38 PM

Walking is an all-time favorite of mine and always has been. I feel so much better when I am moving. I walk approximately 5 miles a day at work, not consistently, but nonetheless, walking. Even though I am pretty tired when I get home there is something about it that also makes me feel good at the same time. Even though I am tired, I also feel increased energy at the same time.