How Good Is Walking For Exercise?

Is Walking For Exercise Worthwhile?

If you’re trying to slim down, tone up, or just generally stay in good shape, you might be wondering what types of exercise you can do to meet your health and fitness goals.

Walking for exercise is a fantastic, low-impact workout that can do wonders for your health. Although it may not be burning a lot of calories since it is low-intensity (i.e., it isn’t drastically raising your heart rate), it does efficiently burn calories and small additions like ankle or hand weights can help you burn even more.

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The Wonders Of Walking For Exercise

Burning Calories 

How many calories you burn walking for exercise depends on the grade of incline, your speed and your body weight. There are many calculators online if you want to get a better idea of how many calories walking can burn for you. But burning calories is far from the only benefit.

Walking is also a great way to work your body’s primary muscle groups while stimulating the digestive system and enjoying all the other perks that come along with simply moving your body. Compared to running, walking clearly burns fewer calories but it also has a very low impact on your bones and joints, which makes it particularly great for those who suffer from pain or injuries.

Improved Health

Results of several studies have all proven the same thing – a regular walking program reduces the risk of getting diabetes, heart disease and osteoporosis-related falls.

Sedentary people tend to have elevated blood sugar levels when uncontrolled. However walking, when coupled with a sensible healthy eating plan, reduces the risk of high blood sugar, known as pre-diabetes, and in many cases the individual can come off of the medication necessary to control it.

Even moderate-intensity exercise like walking, lowers the risk of heart disease. However oddly enough, intense walking doesn’t lower the risk much more that moderate walking, proving that just getting out and walking at a brisk pace reduces the risk.

While walking does not cure osteoporosis, it does counteract the effects of having it – namely reducing the risk of falls which can result in bone breakage. Walking strengthens the muscles supporting joints and improves balance and flexibility, thus increasing stability and reducing the chances of falling.

 Weight Loss

As far as weight is concerned, part of being sedentary usually ranges being at least overweight to obese. As you know, this brings on a range of health problems itself, however walking for exercising helps burn off calories.

If you burn more calories than you eat, you’ll lose weight. A weekly deficit of 3,500 will result in a pound lost. Broken down, this averages out to 500 calories per day. A 200-pound person walking 30 minutes per day at 3 mph will burn about 150 calories. The other 350 calories are easily attained through healthy low-calorie food choices.

No Equipment Required

Walking can be done almost anywhere. All you really need is a good pair of walking shoes fitted to your feet. A pedometer is nice to have to track how many steps you are taking per day, but not necessary.

With some thought, it’s easy to maximize the number of steps taken each day. For example, park at the far end of the lot and walk in the rest of the way. This works whether at work, the grocery store or shopping mall.

If you take public transportation to work, get off a stop or two before or after your closest stop and walk in the rest of the way. When faced with the choice of taking the elevator or stairs, choose the stairs.

It’s Free!

No membership required! Unlike many other forms of exercise, no gym membership is required either. Walk for free in a local park, hiking trails or just around the block in your neighborhood.

If motivation is an issue, start walking with a friend or neighbor that wants to exercise too. Being responsible to each other is a great motivator to not missing a walking session because each of you don’t want to let the other person down.

Getting Into Exercise 

Because of its simplicity and the health benefits derived, walking for exercise is a great choice when coming off a sedentary period and getting back in the exercise game.

Additionally, waking is wonderful as a recovery day exercise. Most people who workout regularly realize the importance of having a rest or recovery day as part of their routine, but just because it’s a “Rest” day doesn’t mean you should veg out on the sofa. It’s important that you don’t come to a full stop on your rest day. You need to keep moving forward, albeit at a slower pace so your muscles can recover from all the hard work.

Free Report: How To Make Your Lifestyle More Active

Walking is easy to fit into your day. Just doing simple things like by parking your car a little further from work or getting off public transport one stop early all make a difference.  People are often amazed at how small exercise changes can reap huge results with their fitness.

To help leverage new habits into a lifetime of good health and better fitness download my free report 20  Ways To Make Your Lifestyle More Active. Once you choose a healthy lifestyle, you’ll never have to worry about dieting again.