WALKING FOR WEIGHT LOSS
Walking is a great, natural way to achieve daily physical activity and burn unwanted stores of body fat. Walking is also recommended to help prevent heart disease, type II diabetes, breast cancer, colon cancer and many other diseases associated with inactivity and excess body weight.
Getting Started: The Warm-Up
First, you want to wake up your muscles and let them know you plan to be active. Walking at an easy warm-up pace for 5-10 minutes tells your muscles they can't just sit back and burn up the available sugars, they need to call on fat reserves. This is why you should not start off at a high speed - when you do that, your cells don't get the signal that they will performing a longer duration activity.
The Workout
When planning your walking workout, think about your objectives: Are you going to walk up a hill or on flat terrain? How much time do you have? Are you dealing with any injuries? What are your fitness goals for the walk? Once determined, we can talk about speed, intensity, duration and terrain.
SPEED: The speed to walk for optimal fat burning is a "determined" pace. At this rate, you should be breathing noticeably but able to carry on a conversation in full sentences.
INTENSITY: The intensity of your walk can be measured by heart rate or perceived exertion. If using heart rate, aim for a target-training zone of 60-70% of your maximum heart rate. If you are using perceived exertion, walk as though you feel it is “somewhat hard” but not so strenuous that you cannot continue. According to Marilyn L. Bach author of Shape Walking, she suggests walking as if you are on your way to an appointment, or up to 10 minutes late for an appointment!
DURATION: Walk at this speed for 30 minutes at a time. Once you have built up to that duration, you can increase the time you walk as desired, or you can pick up the pace.
TERRAIN: If you are walking up a hill, the heart response will be greater. It is OK to slow down! Think “faster on the flats” and “slower on the climbs.”
Building Healthy Habits
Walking a half hour a day or 3 hours per week is associated with a decreased risk of heart disease. Walking 7 hours a week is associated with a decreased risk of breast cancer and Type II diabetes. For this reason, I recommend that you build up to walking an hour a day, most days of the week. Keeping records will keep you on track.
For more information on walking programs for fitness, please contact Susan direct at: sdi4fitness1@aol.com.
This article is provided as a service of REPS Personal Training and Fitness and IDEA, the leading international membership association in the health and fitness industry. For more information on health and fitness tips, please contact Susan Iverson, Certified Personal Trainer, Sports Nutrition and Weight Management Consultant, Co-Owner of REPS Personal Training and Fitness. www.RepsPersonalTraining.com
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