Walking Your Way to Health

If you are ever stuck for some ideas on how to improve your health as well as lose weight easily but were unsure of how effective certain methods might be there is one sure fire way to do that.

And that is by doing some good old fashioned walking.

Of course, that doesn't mean merely getting out of the house and strolling around the block and then getting back to the TV! Walking is a form of exercise that can be very effective if you do it the right way. Here's how to do that.

The Best Kind of Walking is Done Outdoors

Walking outdoors is the best way to walk, as opposed to using a treadmill. That's because it not only involves a constantly changing scenery perspective, but it gets you breathing fresh air (depending upon where you live, of course) and forces you to make several direction changes with some alteration in terrain.

In other words, you get to see lots of different things along the way. For instance, you can take the dog for a healthy walk up and down hills if your locale is not entirely flat. You also get to navigate the occasional obstacle which is good for brain training with regard to problem solving, balance and perspective.

Why Outdoors is Better

Okay, those things aside, you need to walk faster than usual to get the most benefit and keep up a good speed for as long as you can do it. Of course, walking outdoors cannot be a constant, monotonous thing like walking on a treadmill (no matter how many "settings" and options it might have).

You get to:

• Walk around slow moving people
• Dodge people coming at you
• Walk around ill-sited lamp posts and sign posts
• Go round corners and up and down inclines

These all cause you to speed up and slow down but that's all good as long as you are breathing harder and your heart rate is elevated. This all goes to burning more calories and also to improve your physical and mental fitness levels.

So there you have some easy to follow walking tips to help you to lose some of that excess weight if that's what you are aiming at. Or maybe it's just maintaining the lower body weight you may have already succeeded in achieving through a diet.

The bottom line is that you need to maintain some form of daily exercise if you want to stay fit and keep your weight under control. Walking outdoors is one of the easiest, most enjoyable and out-and-out best ways to do that!

Get Out of the House and Walk to Lose Weight

There are plenty of different types of exercise that you can do in order to lose weight, but surely the easiest to do of all of them is simple walking.

When you lead a sedentary lifestyle, perhaps being a slave to the television and rarely moving from your stationary position on the sofa, you gain weight. That's because your body is simply not burning any of the excess calories you are consuming from your diet, no matter how low that level might be.

Walking gives you the exercise your body needs to burn those excess calories, so it makes an excellent form of exercise that even lazy people can do!

All it takes is the motivation to get up off that sofa, switch off the TV and get yourself out of the house. Once you are outside, you just set off in any direction you like and keep walking, gradually building up your pace if you haven't done it in a long time and increasing the distance you go each day.

As your pace increases on a regular basis, you will get to the point where you are burning enough of those extra calories to start to see a difference in your body shape and when standing on the scales.

It Takes Time

Now one thing you have to realize is that this is not going to happen over night, but takes time to build up day by day. After a few weeks of walking daily, increasing the time you walk for to more than half an hour as well as the speed you are walking and the distance that you are covering, you will get to the stage where you are benefiting greatly from this exercise form.

One of the great things about walking for health and energy is that it is so easy and enjoyable to do and that just about anyone who wants to can do it. Just imagine how much better you will feel in yourself for taking the initiative and getting up off that well worn sofa and getting out of the house into the fresh air and going for a nice long walk every day.

Then add to that good feeling the additional joy at watching your weight slowly but steadily reduce as your body gets stronger and you feel fitter and healthier overall!