Walking has so many benefits to ones life and health, and can help prevent and reduce a lot of problems and potential diseases in the body. Walking may be one of the most underrated forms of exercise, and with all the benefits one can get just from walking 30 minutes to an hour a day. Why wouldn’t you want to incorporate more simple walking into your life!
Here’s 10 reasons why you might want to walk more:
1. It Reduces Stress
Walking helps with relaxing the body and letting it flow so to speak. Its one of the most simple forms of exercise you can do to ease any mental stress, as well as physical. Walking helps to improve blood circulation which is a huge plus for getting the body to release stress and stimulate natural hormones. One of them being Dopamine, which is commonly also know as the feel good or happy hormone.
2. It Helps With Fat Loss And Maintaining Healthy Weight
Taking a 30 min to an hour stroll outside or even on a treadmill can surprisingly help with fat loss. Depending on your pace and how long your walk goes depends on how many easy calories you can burn. Roughly a 45 minute brisk walk can burn up to 200-300 calories from just walking. Monitoring your weight and body composition by using latest technology can keep you aware of your weight and improvements as well.
Another reason why its a great idea to incorporate more walking is because it doesn’t really stimulate your appetite at all and if your trying to lose weight, that’s huge! It effortlessly helps with burning calories without making you so hungry like a long run can. It really is a simple but great approach to make part of your daily life.
I know for me it has had awesome affects for me and my life, especially when you make it part of your life. Were only on reason 2 why walking is so good for you and all the benefits one can receive from it. It so simple yet so powerful! Thats partly why I say its one of the most underated forms of exercise one can do.
3. It Helps With Regulating And Lowering Blood Pressure
Nearly 45% of people in the United States alone experience high blood pressure throughout the day. (Always consult your doctor for medical advice) Taking a brisk walk has been known to help people with high blood pressure.
Being able to monitor your blood pressure from home or wherever you are is great way to stay in tune with your current blood pressure. That way your never wondering and can have peace of mind when your aware of your current state.
And as we mentioned early, walking helps with stress and easing ones stress, which is one of the main causes to irregular blood pressure. As well as diet can have a huge effect on blood pressure as well.
4. Fantastic For The Heart And Lungs
Anything that helps to get the heart pumping is great for the body! It means more blood flow and circulation. It supports and strengthens heart functions naturally. It is easy on the body and stimulates your nervous system as well. Having a strong healthy heart is one of the core priciples to having a strong body. The easier the heart and lungs can perform there daily tasks of breathing and pumping the blood throughout the body. The better your entire system functions overall! Having positive circulation in the body is vital for getting nutrients and cells to all the right places in your body.
5. Good For The Joints
One thing about the benefits of walking is that its good for the joints but also easy on the joints as well. The old saying “if you don’t use it, you lose it” has some truth to it. And when it comes to your joints, especially your knees, walking is known for helping to lubricate the joints. Have you ever had a day where you where sitting around all day and your back or legs just felt tight or stiff and you went for a walk and perhaps started to feel better, more looser in your body.
Thats partly why, its lubricating the joints and increasing blood circulation and when
you think about it our bodies are designed to move around everyday. It keeps things active so to speak in the body and when you exercise it keeps the body more strong as it was always designed to be.
6. Boosts Your Energy
Getting a good walk in from time to time can really help to boost your energy. Has been known to improve your mood as well. Walking is great for giving your immune system a boost also. If your ever feeling slugish and not sure why or what to do. Just try taking a nice walk and see if you feel better after a nice 30 minute walk. Can do wonders at getting you out of a slump as well. Sometimes if Im thinking and been working on a project for quite some time, I’ll go for a walk to break things up and helps to clear my head for fresh, new ideas.
7. Tone Your Legs
Consistent walking helps to tone and strengthen leg muscles. To get more leg tone, walk up more hilly places. To strengthen legs even more, you can do jumping exercises squats, lunges and biking is great. Also really good for strengthening the muscles around the knees. Walking helps to maintain your legs tonality.
Walking has so many awesome benefits and is easy to do! Taking hikes and exploring in the woods is one of my favorite ways to go walking and enjoy nature. It is very relaxing and life enhancing to get out and walk and explore.
(Great Walking Plan/Routines)
One thing with walking if you start doing it everyday, it will start becoming a habit and you will start to build momentum like anything. Developing that natural habit of walking everyday, even just 30 min can make a huge difference!
And the thing is, you don’t always have to go somewhere specific to walk. It can be done anywhere. When you go shopping, hiking, going around your neighborhood block, exploring in nature trails, walking to places sometimes instead of driving. There’s so many ways to get the pop in your step so to speak!
If your striving to get to that 10,000 steps a day marker and/or just wanna know how much you are walking in a day, everyday. Then this pentagonfit fitness watch can show you how much you are moving in a day and much more.
This cool walking/fitness watch can help to remind you when to go for your walk, it has smartphone assist and can help keep track of your walking goals too! I believe its one of the fit tracker watches the military use to keep in shape and track there goals as well, which is pretty cool. It can also show you how many steps your walking per day.
Here’s Some Great Ideas For A Walking Plan…
1. Get Up Early Before Having Things To Do
We all know how it can be your trying to start your day on a productive note and you got more things to do than you can think of. But starting your day with a brisk walk might be one of the best things for ya, considering all the benefits one can get out of consistently walking. Also starting the day with a walk is just so satisfying. It gets your body moving, ideas flowing and inspiration to start the day on a good note. At least for me it does.
If your gonna get up early to go for a walk, make it consistent at a consitent time. So if your plan is to get up and walk at 6am then try to stay consistent with that time. It will help to encourage a good walking schedule.
2. Slowly Build Up Your Pace Or Distance
For some people starting at a 2-3mph pace is good and you want to work up to a 3-5mph pace for more of a brisk walk. Or you want to work on walking more distance. So you could work on 5 minutes a day increase in your walk everyday for next coming weeks and before you know it
your at that 30 minute to 1 hour a day distance. Then once you get to that 30 minute per day of walking, you want to stick with it consistently.
It is really great for maintaining and even helping to lose weight. Also if you don’t walk everyday thats fine too. You can always build up to it and as I say, slow and steady wins the race. You don’t have to be walking everyday for 30-60 minutes if your not used to it. Its better to build up to that
kind of exercise.
3. Have A Designated Place For All Your Walking Attire
Keeping everything in one place, your shoes, your coat, hat, your walking watch or whatever else for when you go out on your stroll is important for keeping things organized and keeps you from thinking about not wanting to walk that day. Its just simple for when you head out the door.
You don’t think about it, which is really nice if your just starting out on this walking journey or not used to doing it everyday. Remember going out on a walk is so simple and can be very enjoyable yet is so powerful for your health and mental well being!
4. Having A Consistent Time
Having a consistent time during the day keeps you consistent and helps to build that habit of taking a brisk walk.
It really can be anytime of day that works you, as long as you can stick to it. I know a lot of people that enjoy getting there walk on in the evening or right after dinner. It can be very relaxing and even help your food digest after a meal too.
5. Listening To Podcasts, Videos Or Music
One of the great things you can do when you going out the door is being able to relax, focus and listen to a great podcast or some music. Whatever you prefer. It is a fantastic way to be productive and learn something or enjoy a cool piece of content online or enjoy your favorite music playlist. You’ll be surprised how fast time can go.
You be at the 30 minute marker in no time! Sometimes I will get so locked in, so to speak, in a good podcast or while playing music that I’m like, “its already been an hour”. Its awesome and feels great!
6. Walking Plan For Weight Loss
*Monday- Long walking workout with brisk walk for 60 minutes
*Tuesday- Shorter walk at 30 minutes, plus strength training workout
*Wednesday- Brisk walk for 30 minutes
*Thursday- Longer walk for 60 minutes at brisk pace (3-5mph)
*Friday- Shorter walk at 30 minutes, plus light strength training workout
*Saturday- A final 60 minute walk workout for the week at brisk pace
*Sunday- Take a day off
While the distance you walk and how much you weigh can determine how many calories you burn. You can expect to burn roughly 2,000 calories a week with that walking workout schedule.
1. Short Walking Workout:
*Easy walking warm-up for 5 min
*Increase pace for 30 minutes
*End walk with 3-5 minutes of easy walking cool down
2. Long Walking Workout:
*Easy walking warm-up for 5 minutes
*Increase pace for 60 minutes
*End with 5-10 minutes of easy walking cool down
7. Spacing Out Your Walks
One thing you can always do is take multiple walks a day, especially if you don’t have much time during certain parts of the day. I know for some people they can only walk like 15 min in the morning to get there day going and then later in the evening take like a 30-45 min stroll.
It really depends on what you wanna do. For me I occasionally like to mix it up. Like this morning I went for a brisk walk through my town and enjoyed the fresh morning air. Then later tonight I plan to get a workout in and walk some more, and best part about all this walking stuff, is that you can literally do it anywhere including on treadmill if ya want, especially if its cold out.