Reasons You Should Include Walking Into Your Daily Routine
Walking is becoming more widely recognised as one of the best ways to take exercise. It’s an enjoyable, low impact, low injury risk exercise with the possibility for the introduction of a social element as well. For someone who is new to exercise, or maybe hasn’t exercised for some time, walking is the perfect introduction.
You don’t need any special equipment or training and you can fit it into your daily routine whenever it suits you best. It’s also a very cost effective method of exercising. There are no expensive monthly membership fees to pay, so getting in shape won’t bankrupt you.
As with any form of exercise or physical activity, you will burn extra calories when you are actually walking. However, the really good news is that you will also increase you metabolic rate. This means that you will use calories more quickly during the day, regardless of what you’re doing. If you’re sitting reading a book, surfing the internet, watching TV – or even while you’re fast asleep – you will burn calories faster than if you weren’t exercising.
Apart from weight loss, walking on a regular basis will provide you with many health benefits. Your heart will be strengthened and your blood circulation will improve as walking increases oxygen intake in the blood. It can be an effective way to lower blood pressure, it can strengthen your lungs and it is even effective against anxiety and depression. The risk of contracting certain variants of cancer is also much reduced for regular walkers. Walking will provide you with more energy and will help you to sleep better. The full list of health benefits is too long to include in full. Walking is like a miracle drug.
One good way to make sure your walking sessions are fun is to make it a social event. Go for a walk around the block with some of your work colleagues during your lunch break – or walk around your neighbourhood or local park with neighbours, friends and family members in the evening. If you like, you can just take your dog.
The miles and the time will fly by much more quickly when you’re listening to your favorite tunes. An mp3 player is a good investment if you don’t already own one. Just be sure not to have the volume too high and pay particular attention to traffic if you’re in a busy area.
Fitness footwear technology has seen some interesting new developments of late. You can now choose from a wide selection of “toning” shoes such as Fit flops sandals, Skechers Shape Ups shoes, Masai Barefoot Technology shoes and Reebok Easy Tones exercise shoes. These claim to raise the effectiveness of your walking workout by increasing the amount of work performed by your lower body muscles. They do this using specially designed soles, which either mimic the effect of walking on soft sand or introduce an element of microscopic imbalance which makes your lower body muscles work a bit harder.
If you have a job keeping your motivation up, then you might think about getting hold of a pedometer. An Omron pedometer is accurate to within 5% and will display your results in terms of steps taken, distance covered or calories burned. Most health advisers recommend a target of 10,000 steps a day in order to get the full benefits of walking, including weight loss. Wearing a pedometer during the day will not only help you to keep track of your progress, but will prompt you to seek out new ways of boosting your daily step count.