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Fitness walking is easy, safe and inexpensive. It’s aerobic, it
burns calories, and it’s an ideal fat-burning activity. It
conditions the heart, improves muscle tone and strength, relieves
stress, and can help with back pain, osteoporosis, respiratory
problems, diabetes, arthritis, cardiac rehabilitation and a variety
of other health problems. Walking is an injury-free way for
everybody to keep fit, and fit kids are fitter when all the family
walks together.
How to Walk for Weight Control
Weight is determined mostly by the balance of calories - how many
you burn vs. how many you eat each day. To lose weight, you need to
increase your activity to burn more and/or eat fewer calories each
day.
A pound of fat equals 3500 calories. To lose 1 pound a week you will
need to expend 3500 more calories than you eat that week, whether
through increased activity or decreased eating or both. Losing 1-2
pounds of fat a week is a sensible goal, and so you will want to use
the combination of increased activity and eating less that will
total 3500 calories for 7 days.
Your weight x distance = energy used
walking. Time does not matter as much as distance. If you speed up
to walking a mile in 13 minutes or less, you will be burning more
calories per mile. But for most beginning walkers, it is best to
increase the distance before working on speed. A simple rule of
thumb is 100 calories per mile for a 150 pound person.
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