Tag walking

Walking is a great way to burn calories and lose weight. But there are a couple of things you can do to increase the number of calories burned and to maximize your workout. Three things affect the number of calories burned when you’re looking to walk off weight.

1) Speed is Important When You Walk Off Weight

Starting out, you may be able to only walk at a pace of 3 mph giving you a pace of 20-minute miles. However by working up to a walking speed of 4.5 mph, you end up with 13-minute miles. The difference in the number of calories burned is 20 calories per mile. On a one hour walk, that is an additional 92 calories burned.

2) Distance is Needed to Walk Off Weight

It stands to reason that if you are walking faster for the same amount of time, that you will cover more distance. However if you are just starting out, work on distance before speed. The advantage of increasing your distance first is that you build endurance, i.e. you are able to sustain walking at the same pace over a longer period of time. Once you have built endurance, you can work on increasing your speed.

3) Heavier Weight Matters When You Walk Off Weight

A 120 pound person burns about 65 calories per mile walking at 3 mph on a flat surface. As a comparison, a 180 pound person walking the same distance and at the same pace burns about 95 calories. Numerically speaking, the above facts would lead you to believe that as you lose weight, you would most likely will have to increase your energy expenditure to keep burning the same number of calories. However, what can happen is that as you become fit, your basal metabolic rate increases meaning you naturally burn more calories than you did before.

Healthy Eating When you Walk Off Weight

The other half of walking off weight is to eat healthy. You can’t expect to lose weight by walking and then coming home and gorging yourself with food that is bad for you. Keep in mind that the candy bar you ate takes three to five miles of walking to burn it off! When you’re trying to walk off weight, this can be a huge handicap so be aware of this destructive habit.

A healthy diet should consists of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, foods high in Omega 3 fats (such as tuna, salmon, mackerel, herring, walnuts and avocados) and lean meats.

Generally speaking a woman should eat around 1,200 to 1,300 calories per day; a man 1,500 to 1,600 per day. This should put you on a weight loss of one pound per week. If you lose more than one pound adjust your calorie intake accordingly as you may not be eating enough calories.

When you want to walk off weight and team up walking on a consistent basis along with healthy eating, you’ll be well on your way to losing weight the healthy way. Soon you’ll be enjoying life as a lighter and healthier you.

How Many Calories Do You Burn as You Walk Off Weight?

The number of calories while walking varies from person to person. You may walk the same route at the same speed with a friend who weighs about the same and is of similar age, and one of you will burn more calories than the other. Why is that?

The Other Variable as You Walk Off Weight

Besides weight, age speed and distance, the other variable is fitness level. If one of you is more fit than the other, the one that is most fit will have a higher basal metabolic rate (BMR), meaning that person naturally burns more calories at rest. While you can’t directly control your BMR, you can increase it by improving your fitness level; this is where walking comes in.

Know Your BMR

Regardless if you are walking to lose weight or improve fitness, you have to know your BMR as a starting point. An online search for “Basal Metabolic Rate Calculator” brings up a host of options. Pick one and enter your information – height, weight and age (and sedentary, if it asks for fitness level). The results are the number of calories your body needs each day to maintain your current weight at your current fitness level.

For example, a female weighing 120 pounds, 30 years old and 5 foot 4 inches tall needs to eat 1700 calories per day to maintain her current weight. To lose a pound of weight per week, she has to burn 2400 calories per day.

Calories Burned as You Walk Off Weight

So how far and fast does she have to walk to burn the additional 500 calories per day? On average, our example walking 3 mph for an hour burns 200 calories. And because speed is a factor, it makes sense that if she walked at a faster rate, she would have covered a greater distance over the same amount of time and would have burned even more calories. Having walked at 3.5 mph, would have burned an additional 50 calories.

Now before you think you are going to have to walk 2.5 hours per day, don’t forget that household chores also burn calories, so they factor into your 500 calories per day burned. For example, 30 minutes each of daily activities, such as showering, making beds, doing dishes and laundry, burn over 400 calories. Add in your hour walk and you are at 600 calories burned for the day.

Sometimes all it takes is to add in an hour of brisk walking per day – walking with a purpose – to get the extra calorie burn you need to lose weight. As you become more fit, and your basal metabolic rate increases, so will the number of calories burned at the same activity level. So strap on your walking shoes and get your “walk off weight” routine started!

If you’d like to get more out of your walking for fitness plan, check out the “Guide to Setting Your Walking Fitness Goals” for more in depth knowledge on the subject of walking for fitness. While you’re there, be sure to sign up for the free MyFitnessNut.com Newsletter to be kept up to date on the latest health and fitness topics.

It makes sense that to burn fat and ultimately lose weight, you have to get your body into the fat-burning mode. But just exactly how do you tell your body to burn stored fat instead of pulling from available sugars? By warming up first!

Warm Up Before You Walk to Burn Fat

To wake up your muscles and let them know you are in this for the long haul, walk at a slower pace than normal for five to 10 minutes.

Once you are warmed-up, increase your speed to at least a brisk or moderate pace; your daily goal should be to walk at this pace for at least 30 minutes.

What Does a Brisk Pace Feel Like?

While the speed you walk depends on your fitness level, the way it “feels” to you will be the same. Your breathing rate should increase, but you should still be able to carry on a conversation with your walking partner. Your heart rate should measure from 50% to 70% of your maximum heart rate, 220 minus your age. On a less technical side, it should feel like you are rushing to get to get to an important appointment because you are running late – you know, that quickened pace.

Increasing the Number of Calories Burned

Let’s face it, you are only going to be able to burn a certain number of calories by walking the same distance at the same pace. As your body gets more fit, it will adapt by becoming more efficient. So to increase the number of calories burned, it makes sense that you either have to walk farther or faster (or both). But wait, there is a third option – weights.

By wearing wrist or ankle weights, you increase the amount of work exerted even though you are not walking any further or faster. Your heart beats a little faster- you perspire a little more; your body is working a little harder.

While wearing weights, move your arms in a back and forth pumping motion to burn even more calories, build muscle and lose more weight.

Walking builds muscle. By working your large lower body muscle groups, they become more toned, better defined and stronger. Now your “new” muscles burn more calories (even at rest) than your old ones did because it takes more energy to fuel them than it did before.

By wearing wrist weights, you are also improving your arm and shoulder muscles, making them burn more calories too. All-in-all, it adds up; the “new you” is now a fat burning machine, burning more calories than before. As you burn the calories you’ll burn fat but you have to get started and the best time is now.

If you’d like to get more out of your walking for fitness plan, check out the “Guide to Setting Your Walking Fitness Goals” for more in depth knowledge on the subject of walking for fitness. While you’re there, be sure to sign up for the free MyFitnessNut.com Newsletter to be kept up to date on the latest health and fitness topics.

Most experts agree to reap the health benefits from walking, you have to walk at least at a brisk pace. But what is considered “brisk”?

Because a brisk pace depends on the amount of exertion put forth while walking, it depends on your fitness level. What may be brisk for someone just starting out walking, will not be the same as for someone that has been doing it for a long time.

Regardless if you are new to the sport or not, you have to use some method of “measuring” your walking to know if you are making progress or not. Walking is measured in two ways – either by intensity or pace.

Intensity When Walking

Using this method, your intensity should be moderate, meaning you should get your heart rate up to 50% to 70% of your maximum heart rate (220 – age). Once you have your target heart rate figure, then monitor your pulse (count the number of beats during a 10 second period and multiply by 6) and adjust your pace as necessary to keep it within your range. Another way to roughly calculate if you are within your range or not is you should be able to speak in full sentences while walking, but unable to sing a song.

Pace Yourself When You Walk

This method uses a calculation of distance covered over a span of time. A brisk pace for people new to walking starts at about three miles per hour, breaking down to 20 minutes per mile or about 12 minutes per kilometer. As your fitness level increases, you can quicken your pace to four miles per hour – 15 minutes per mile or 9 minutes and 15 seconds per kilometer.

Keeping Track of Progress

While you can measure your pace with just a wristwatch, by keeping track of how long it takes you to make it around a measured course, there are an array of tools to help you monitor your progress. From simple online calculators, to electronic devices, to smartphone applications, there is something for everyone to measure time and distance, pace or the intensity level of your walking.

When coupled with a healthy diet, walking may be the perfect exercise for weight loss. All that is required for equipment is good pair of walking shoes; everything else is nice to have, but optional.

And walking can be incorporated into your normal daily routine. Park at the end of the parking lot and walk the rest of the way to work, or if you take public transportation to and from work, get off a stop or two further away and walk to work.

If you’d like to get more out of your walking for fitness plan, check out the “Guide to Setting Your Walking Fitness Goals” for more in depth knowledge on the subject of walking for fitness. While you’re there, be sure to sign up for the free MyFitnessNut.com Newsletter to be kept up to date on the latest health and fitness topics.

We know that walking at a brisk pace (at least 3 mile per hour) is not only good cardio exercise, but it can help you lose weight. However when combined with other types of cardio exercising, such as water sports, biking and weight training, you can achieve your weight loss goal quicker.

Water Sports and Walking

If you have bad knees, swimming and water aerobics may be ideal forms of cardio training for you. Not only are they low-to-no-impact exercises, they work your heart, lungs and many different muscle groups very effectively. When swimming, use various types of strokes to work different muscle groups and get the maximum upper and lower body benefit. If you enjoy doing water aerobics, add water weights to get even more benefit from your water training routines.

Biking and Walking

Biking is another low impact cardio exercise that is good for weight loss. Not only does it work the larger lower body muscle groups for maximum calorie burn, it builds up those same muscles so they burn more calories even when not exercising.

Anything you can do to make an exercise harder to do or to build muscle will burn more calories. When biking, go faster or further. Instead of biking with the wind, choose to go against it; on a varied course, go the direction that gives you the most uphill rides. You’ll get better workouts and burn more calories.

Weight Training While Walking

To increase the effectiveness of walking, use either light wrist or ankle weights (or both for maximum calorie burn). Walking while wearing just one pound weights will significantly increase the number of calories you burn.

Because walking and biking tend to specifically work the lower body muscle groups, consider adding in a couple days per week of upper body weight training per week to push your weight loss to the next level. You can use dumbbells, free weights or kettlebells; all tend to work your upper body, thus defining and toning those muscle groups. And if you are female, don’t worry about “bulking up”; it just won’t happen because you do not have the necessary level of testosterone needed to build huge muscles.

Each exercise by itself has limitations as far as how much each can affect weight loss, but by combining them, you can burn more calories during each workout and achieve your weight loss goal quicker. Once at goal, keep walking and doing these exercises at a lesser intensity to maintain your weight loss.

If you’d like to get more out of your walking for fitness plan, check out the “Guide to Setting Your Walking Fitness Goals” for more in depth knowledge on the subject of walking for fitness. While you’re there, be sure to sign up for the free MyFitnessNut.com Newsletter to be kept up to date on the latest health and fitness topics.

There is a definite correlation between walking and blood pressure. And it’s a good one. Did you know as little as thirty minutes of walking a mere three times a week might be enough to significantly lower your blood pressure?

This guide will explain just how walking and blood pressure are related, so you can make the necessary changes in your life to create a healthier heart and longer longevity. And doing so may be as simple as putting one foot in front of the other.

Many sufferers of high blood pressure may also suffer from the incorrect assumption that extremely intense physical activity is needed to have any significant impact on BP readings. But fortunately, that does not appear to be the case.

Studies on Walking and Blood Pressure

A study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health cited research taken from 106 healthy civil servants who participated in a twelve week exercise program. All of the participants had sedentary jobs, which provided little to no physical activity.

One third of the field was directed to take brisk walks for thirty minutes a day, five days a week. Another third were simply asked to walk briskly for thirty minutes a day for only three days a week. The remaining volunteers were told to alter their lifestyles in no way at all. The thirty minute time period was chosen because research has led to many programs in the United States and other countries which tout this minimum number as a daily requirement for moderate exercise to maintain healthy fitness levels.

Study participants wore pedometers to monitor their walking levels, with researchers frequently measuring blood cholesterol, hip, weight and waist size, as well as the all-important blood pressure. These measurements were taken before and after the study, which showed a systolic blood pressure drop of 5 and 6 points respectively for those volunteers which participated in a walking regimen for three and five days. Waist and hip measurements also decreased by roughly 2.4 cm, with no changes found in the sedentary volunteer group.

And a researcher at Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, Mark A. Tully, said that a decrease of just a few points in BP, accompanied with even a very small reduction in waist and hip size, can significantly reduce your risk of death due to a myriad of heart diseases. This is because the physical act of walking promotes healthy blood flow to all areas of your body.

During walking and other exercises, your systolic blood pressure ramps up to increase blood flow, which delivers much-needed oxygen to your working muscles. Make a concerted effort to add more walking to your daily routine, and the simple exercise can help regulate your blood pressure, keeping your heart healthy and strong. Yes, walking and blood pressure have a close relationship indeed.

If you’d like to get more out of your walking for fitness plan, check out the “Guide to Setting Your Walking Fitness Goals” for more in depth knowledge on the subject of walking for fitness. While you’re there, be sure to sign up for the free MyFitnessNut.com Newsletter to be kept up to date on the latest health and fitness topics.

Walking, as a way to improve your health and trim your waistline, requires the use of a good exercise technique – Specifically, a good walking technique involves:

1. Using good form; let’s start with your head and work our way do.
2. Looking forward and not down with your eyes when walking; this way your neck, shoulders and back all stay in a straight vertical straight line with your head.
3. Giving some rhythm to your walk by naturally swinging your arms; to get even more benefit out of your walk and to burn more calories, use light hand weights and “work” your arms in a back-and-forth pumping motion.
4. Tightening your abdominal core when walking. A strong core gives your body good posture and helps keep head, neck, shoulders and back in alignment.
5. Making sure as you take steps forward, your foot contacts the ground on the outside of your heel first and as your step progresses, your weight should shift inside to your arch and then shift back to the ball of your foot and finally to your toes where you push off for your next step.

But you should also bear in mind these three walking technique tips if you’re going to get the most from your walking workouts…

Walking Technique Tip 1 – Exercise (Almost) Daily

The United States Department of Health and Human Services recommends moderate exercise at least 2 1/2 hours each week to stay healthy. For most of us, this can be broken down into 30-minute increments of walking five days per week, interspersed with one day of strength training and resting on the seventh day, to round out your weekly healthy walking plan.

Walking Technique Tip 2 – Set Realistic Goals

If you are extremely out of shape and have not exercised for a while, start slow. Once cleared by your doctor to exercise, try walking five minutes per day for the first week. Increase this amount by five minutes each week. After 6 weeks, you will be walking 30 minutes per day.

If you can’t find a 30-minute chunk of time to walk, you get the same benefit by walking twice a day for 15 minutes each time or even three 10-minute daily walks.

Walking Technique Tip 3 – Track Your Progress

Tracking your progress is the part that gives you the motivation to stick to your healthy walking plan. Today, there are several electronic “tools” on the market to make tracking easy. Invest in a good pedometer or accelerometer to keep track of how many steps you walk each day. Your goal, between walking and other steps you take each day, should add up to 10,000 per day.

Benefits of Using the Correct Walking Technique

Besides losing weight and getting healthier, following a walking plan can lift your mood, improve coordination, strengthen bones, and even prevent or negate the effects of various illnesses, such as heart disease, high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes.

To make walking even easier, enlist a friend or family member to walk with you. Both of you will reap the benefits of walking when consistently using a healthy walking technique.

If you’d like to get more out of your walking for fitness plan, check out the “Guide to Setting Your Walking Fitness Goals” for more in depth knowledge on the subject of walking for fitness. While you’re there, be sure to sign up for the free MyFitnessNut.com Newsletter to be kept up to date on the latest health and fitness topics.

Walking is a great way to get exercise, lose weight and get fit, but if not done properly, it can be counterproductive. These four walking mistakes are the ones most often made by inexperienced walkers when starting a new fitness plan:

• Wrong Walking Stride
• Wrong Walking Shoes
• Wrong Walking Posture
• Wrong Walking Frequency

Walking Mistake #1 – The Wrong Walking Stride

It seems that if you want to walk faster, you could do so by taking longer strides – increasing the distance walked between one foot and the other. Wrong! Increasing your stride tends to result in an ungainly (and unnatural) walk that can end up hurting your feet and shins. If you want to walk faster, take shorter strides, but more of them during the same amount of time.

Walking Mistake #2 – The Wrong Walking Shoes

Not all shoes coined as “walking shoes” are good for your feet. If they happen to be too stiff, too heavy or too small, they may actually do more harm to your feet than good. When purchasing a new pair of walking shoes, consult with an athletic store expert. They can size you for a shoe that will be not only comfortable to walk in, but will give you the support, but also the flexibility, your feet need when walking.

Shoes wear out. While your favorite pair of walking shoes may seem like they are not worn out yet, they in fact may have lost their cushioning ability. If you walk 30 minutes per day three or four times per week, plan on buying new shoes every six months. Your feet will thank you for it!

Walking Mistake #3 – The Wrong Walking Posture

Using the proper posture is important when walking. Many people tend to walk with their head tilted forward and their eyes looking down. This creates an imbalance of weight and can lead to neck, back and shoulder problems. Instead, walk with your head aligned over your neck with your eyes looking forward about 10 to 20 feet in front of you. Strive to keep your head, neck, spine all in a line with each other.

Walking Mistake #4 -The Wrong Walking Frequency

You can walk too much. If you find yourself losing your enthusiasm to pound the pavement, feel tired all day and always have aches and pains, all could be signals your body is sending you to walk less frequently. The most you should be walking is six days per week. Your body needs at least one day to build muscle, repair torn muscle fibers and to put energy back into your muscles.

A better plan yet is to walk four days per week, do some upper body strength training two days and rest the seventh day. Your two days of strength training should alternate with your walk days, meaning you should not strength train two days in a row, but have a walk day or two between them. Doing it this way balances your upper body muscle groups with the lower body and it give the muscles you use for walking a little extra time off.

Don’t let these walking mistakes derail your fitness program. Take heed, walk smart and have fun! If you’d like to get more out of your walking for fitness plan, check out the “Guide to Setting Your Walking Fitness Goals” for more in depth knowledge on the subject of walking for fitness. While you’re there, be sure to sign up for the free MyFitnessNut.com Newsletter to be kept up to date on the latest health and fitness topics.

Every dog needs exercising daily. Just keep in mind that exercising is not a one-size-fits-all when it comes to dogs.

The amount of exercise varies according to dog type. A little dog can’t exercise for as long or hard as a bigger dog. So don’t take your Chihuahua and your Rottweiler on the same run and expect the little one to keep up.

While no written guidelines exist, your veterinarian can give you sound advice on what is appropriate for your dog(s).

Just like you, your dog should have a physical and a clean bill of health before starting an exercise program.

Types of Exercise

There are several different types of exercise you can do with your dog. What comes to most peoples’ mind is walking or running. And while that is two popular types of exercising, there are several more, such as:

• doggy bootcamp
• chase me
• agility workout

Doggy Bootcamp

Doggy bootcamp is a combination of playing fetch with your dog and working out at the same time. Check to see if you can find a bootcamp already established in your area by searching Google; if none is available, start your own.

Basically, you throw a favorite toy of Fido and while he is running out to get it and bring it back, you are static in-place exercising, such as doing push-ups, sit-ups, squats, jumping jacks, jumping rope, etc.

If your doggy bootcamp is in a public park, you may soon find yourself in company of other dogs and owners who want to do the same thing.

Chase Me

This routine is a moving tug-of-war between you and your dog. Place two objects as markers, such as water bottles, 10 feet or so apart. With your dog’s favorite toy in hand and your dog trying to wrestle it from you, side shuffle (you in the squat position) back and forth between the two markers. Do these as many times as you can.

Agility Workout

As a dog owner, you have probably watched dog agility trials on TV. Now it is your turn to take the leash in hand and do your own agility workout. If no established course is in your area, make your own out of common items found around the house. Your dog will enjoy the challenge and both of you will get exercise at the same time.

No Dog – No Problem

If you don’t own a dog, there are a couple of ways you can still workout with one. Dog shelters welcome responsible volunteers to check out a dog and exercise it. Maybe you have a home-bound neighbor that can’t exercise his or her dog. Ask if you can take their dog out for some exercise.

Keep in mind that getting outdoors is not only exercise for a dog, but an enhancing social interaction for them. With their keen sense of smell, they are enjoying the outing even more than you while you’re conquering many of the 10,000 steps a day that you need to keep health and fitness in check!

The Benefits of 10,000 Steps Per Day

To get the point across as to why 10,000 steps a day are important, chances are that you are reading this from a laptop or desktop computer. And that is one of the dangers of modern day society. Our work and personal lifestyle habits tend to lead toward a very sedentary lifestyle which centers on a lot of sitting.

With heart disease, obesity, diabetes and even stroke and heart attacks directly correlated to a sedentary lifestyle, it is important that you understand the benefits of walking at least 10,000 steps per day.

How have fitness organizations and experts arrived at this 10,000 steps figure? With the average adult human covering 2.5 feet with every step, this means it would take a little over 2,000 consecutive steps to cover 1 mile in distance. Health professionals have stated that 5 miles of walking spread out over the course of a day leads to a significantly healthier individual, and that is where the 10,000 step number originated.

The good news is you do not have to walk this distance at one time. And if you maintain the average 3 to 4 mph brisk walking rate which most adults can, this means that between 80 and 100 minutes is all which is required to cover 5 miles, or 10,000 steps a day.

Taking your dog for a nice and enjoyable walk can burn through one third or more of those steps easily. About a mile and a half will take care of that quite quickly.

How Do You Count and Estimate Your Steps?

But without counting, how do you know just how many steps you are currently walking throughout the course of your day? If you sit down a lot, at work, at home, in your car, you only average between 1,000 and 3,000 steps a day.

To keep heart disease, obesity, several cancers and an early death at bay, this simply means adding an extra 7,000 to 9,000 steps to your daily routine. Time-wise this is just another hour of walking, and you can spread that out over the course of your day.

The benefits of those 10,000 daily steps are plentiful. The American Heart Association believes that 10,000 steps is a magic metric the average person can use to increase heart health while simultaneously decreasing the risk of developing heart disease.

The Surgeon General also agrees with this figure, and if it only helps you combat heart disease, the number one killer of both women and men in America every year, it would be a worthwhile undertaking. But the benefits of 10,000 steps per day also include an immune system boost, reduced waist size, lower body mass index, increased energy and less risk of developing diabetes.

Purchase a Low Cost Pedometer for Easy Tracking

Are you ready to get started yet? One of the advantages of walking 10,000 steps per day is that literally anyone can do it, and if you need to purchase a pedometer to keep yourself on track, a very low-cost step that you should take. You and your furry friends will look and feel better, and allow you both to live a much longer and happier life when you incorporate the 10,000 steps per day program into your daily life.

You can learn more about “How Much Exercise Do I Need Each Day” and discover many methods of exercising but the thing is that anyone can benefit from the act walking and for most people, it’s something they can accomplish.