Are you one of many people who would like to shed some weight and lose a few inches from your waistline? Or maybe you would like to lower the risk of heart problems or stroke? Increasing the strength of your lungs and heart, or bringing your blood pressure level down might be important to you. Maybe you’d just like to have more energy, avoid depression and feel generally better?

It does sound like quite a shopping list of health benefits. However, if you’re bracing yourself for a plug for the latest wonder drug or expecting details of a fitness regime suitable for an Olympic medal hopeful, then you can relax. Believe it or not, all of these benefits – and a few more besides – are available simply by doing something that you do everyday anyway – walking.

Walking is a great form of exercise. Almost anyone can do it – there’s no need to find the time to fit in a trip to the gym (and no expensive monthly membership charges either). There’s no need for any special exercise equipment and you can slot it into your daily schedule whenever it suits you best.

All that you really need to start your walking exercise program is a comfortable pair of shoes and clothing suitable for the ambient conditions. Although not absolutely necessary, it might not be a bad idea to get hold of an mp3 player if you don’t own one already. The miles and the time will pass quickly when you’re walking along listening to your favourite tunes.

Walking for just half an hour daily on a consistent and regular basis will quickly produce results. You will begin to achieve all of the benefits previously discussed – and the pounds will begin to melt away. If you can work up to 10,000 steps a day – equivalent to about 5 miles – you will look good, feel great, have a lot more energy and be a good deal healthier. Again, whilst it’s not absolutely necessary, you might want to pick up a cheap pedometer (you can find these starting at u nder $10 these days).Even an Omron pedometer – one of the best and most accurate brands on the market – is inexpensive these days. This will help you to keep track of how many steps you take. Most modern pedometers will also tell you how much distance you’ve covered and how many calories you’ve burned if that’s how you prefer to measure your progress.

If you haven’t taken regular exercise for a while, if you suffer from a medical condition, or if you are over 40 years of age then you should seek your doctor’s advice prior to starting out on any new exercise regime. However, if you apply a little common sense and start out slowlyy, a low impact, low injury risk workout like walking will, most likely, be extremely beneficial for you. Leave the car in the garage and walk to work. Walk to school, walk to work. Walk around the block for ten or fifteen minutes at lunch time. Before you know it, you’ll be slimmer, healthier and, more importantly, you’ll feel great and more able to enjoy life to the full.

You could also try using Fit flops exercise shoes. They’re specially designed to increase the amount of time that your muscles are active for during normal walking activities – so they will help to increase the effectiveness of whatever walking activity you manage to fit into your daily schedule.

Tags: exercise, omron pedometer, walking, weight loss
Filed under: Fat Loss