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?