WALKING
for exercise and health

Walking for exercise and health is a great way to lose weight, improve cardiovascular fitness, help prevent conditions such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and osteoporosis.

The great thing about walking is that it is low impact, doesn’t require any special equipment, and doesn’t come with injury risks associated with many other activities such as running or cycling. Just watch out for cars!!

How do I incorporate walking for exercise and health in to my life?
Begin by creating a habit. You don’t have to go ‘gung-ho’ in the beginning and walk 6 days a week for an hour each time. You want to make walking for exercise and health a long term habit, so start slow, and you’ll have more chance of succeeding in the long run. Begin with 3 days a week, for a half hour to 45 minutes. Work that up to at least half an hour most day of the week.

If you finding it difficult to have the time to walk half an hour most days of the week, try to incorporate short bursts of walking during the day. Here are some helpful hints:

Take the stairs instead of the elevator
Walk your dog (or your neighbors dog!)
Get off the bus one stop earlier and walk the extra distance
Walk to the local shops instead of driving
Do some house work that involves walking eg: vacuuming or mowing the lawn

At what pace should I walk?
When walking for exercise and health, you should be walking at a ‘brisk’ pace. This means you will be puffing slightly, but still be able to talk. If you are able to sing, then you can up the pace a bit. Maybe try humming, you could look strange singing out loud whilst walking around your neighborhood!

For a more specific idea on what pace you should be walking at please click here to determine what heart rate you should be sticking to.

How do I use walking for exercise and health to help lose weight?
Use the tips mentioned on this page. Incorporate walking for exercise and health in to your weekly routine, and also include the right foods in the right amounts. Quite basically, if you are not losing weight, you need to reduce your portion sizes. There is an old saying to lose weight…‘move more, and eat less’. Within reason of course!

Click here to get more specific with your food requirements in relation to losing weight.

Also, for an idea of how many calories are burned when walking, refer to this table.

Use a pedometer
By wearing a pedometer all day, it can give you a good idea of how many steps you are making each day. It can be a great motivator to compare the amount of steps you take each day, and try to make improvements on it. Aim for 10,000 steps or more in order for walking for exercise and health to be of benefit.

Tips for improving
If you do the same regular exercise, your body adapts quite quickly, and doest make further improvements until you challenge yourself again. You don’t have to continually challenge yourself on every walk you do, but definitely over time, you want to progressively do better than what you were doing weeks previously.

Here are some tips to help challenge yourself:

try to increase the overall pace of your walk, or increase the distance walked (or both!)
incorporate hills in to your walk
Have bursts during the walk where you increase the pace a little, then come back to normal speed. Bursts can last for as little as 10 seconds, and go as long as a few minutes
Walk with hand weights

Warming up and Cooling down
The best way to warm you muscle up and prepare them for exercise is to start with a leisurely pace for the first few minutes of your walking. Pick up the pace from there.</DIV>

When you finish your walk, stretch your leg muscles. There should be a feeling of slight discomfort, but not overly too much pain. Hold the stretches for at least 20 seconds and do not ‘bounce’.

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