Walking for weight loss

Everyone knows that the road to being healthy can be should be taken with a healthy dose of exercise. Diets have always been accompanied with reminders that constant activity is required for it to work. The government has even circulated its own recommendations for exercise. Many people think that just because you use your legs to get you to one place to another, it already constitutes exercise. Many people strain this definition further by just walking then considering it as their exercise. But does this work?

Researchers coming from the University of Alberta have taken this question seriously, and they have embarked on a very detailed study. They compared the fitness level of two groups: one group involved following a walking program, and the other group was told to do traditional fitness routines that are moderate in intensity. The research concluded that the fitness level of the latter group was significantly higher than the former, possibly indicating that walking may not be enough. The leader of the research team, Dr. Vicki Harber, elaborated that walking, because of it is a low-intensity activity, do not give the benefits of fitness routines that range from low, to moderate, to high intensity. She also said that in order to be physically fit through exercise, low-intensity activities should be combined with high- and moderate-intensity ones.

In other words, walking will not give you the benefits that you can get from having more challenging exercise routines. But still, can it somehow contribute to overall fitness? And more importantly, can you really be physically fit (i.e. lose weight) through walking?

It is true that walking has its place in a fitness regimen, especially for those who are just recently starting to work towards being healthy. For those who have had no exercise for a long time, it is best to start with a walking program so as to accustom your body to physical activity. Walking is a great segue towards more challenging exercises. This low-intensity activity is particularly recommended to those who feel that their bodies are not up to par, are overweight, and have no experience in strenuous physical activity. Walking is not simply getting you in one physical place to another; it can also take you from inactivity to motion. Because it makes use of the muscles, it will still allow you to burn more calories and to provide a warm-up to your muscles.

However, remember that walking alone does not constitute an entire exercise regimen. As was stated above, you need to subject your body to more strenuous physical activities in order to truly see the results. Once your body gets used to walking, it will adapt to this activity and thus you will reach a plateau. Because of the body’s amazing ability to adapt, every time you get into an exercise rut, that is, if you repeat the same routines over and over for a period of time, your body will gradually adjust and you won’t see any results. Progress requires stepping up. To maintain progress, your body has to constantly challenge itself so that it won’t fall into a rut.

Brisk walking is best accompanied by resistance training. This kind of exercise does not necessarily mean bulging muscles such as that of bodybuilders or pro wrestlers. It is true that resistance training is similar to lifting weights, but this should not be intimidating because, after all, your goal is not to look like a bodybuilder or a pro wrestler. The benefits of resistance training include muscle tone, increased metabolic rate, increased bone density, improved mood, and improved posture, to name a few. You don’t have to use dumbbells or barbells for weight training. You can also enroll in a few yoga or Pilates classes, which advocate training using body weight.