WALKING YOUR WAY TO WEIGHT LOSS

A SIMPLE TWO-PART APPROACH TO BECOMING FITTER, HEALTHIER, AND HAPPIER IN 49 DAYS

HEALTHFIT PUBLISHING

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Part I

1. All About Walking

The Perils of a Sedentary Lifestyle

The Benefits of Walking

Ten Thousand Steps a Day

Walk to Weight Loss With the Right Mindset

Common Walking Concerns and Solutions

Footwear for Success

Taking the Next Step

2. Your Walking Fitness Program: Before You Start

Before You Start

Warm Up, Cool Down, and Stretch

Walking Fitness Program: Basic Guidelines

Tailoring Your Walking Program

The Importance of Tailoring Your Program

3. Seven-Week Beginner Walking Fitness Program

Week One

Week Two

Week Three

Week Four

Week Five

Week Six

Week Seven

Taking Your Walking Program Further

Walking Outdoors

4. The Ultimate Guide to Outdoor Walking

Benefits of Walking Outdoors

Types of Outdoor Walking

Other Types of Outdoor Walking

Walking Styles Explained

Nordic Walking

Race Walking

Chi Walking

Make Walking Fun

Walking Indoors

5. Indoor Walking: Don’t Let the Weather Put You Off

Indoor Walking Benefits

Considerations for Walking Indoors

Options for Walking Indoors

Walking at Home

Changing Speed, Inclines, and Resistance Indoors

6. Make It a Lifestyle: Creating a Habit of Walking

Repetition Creates Routine

Habit-Forming Motivation

Ease Into It

Building Blocks of Forming a Habit

Building Momentum

Be Compassionate With Yourself

Start Enjoying Walking

Keep Expectations in Check

Make Walking a Non-Workout Habit

7. Tracking, Monitoring, and Measuring Your Results

What to Track

Activity Trackers

Walking Apps

Part II

8. High-Quality Nutrition and Healthy Foods to Support Your Walks

Calories versus Nutrition

Insulin and Weight Gain

Portion Control

Water for Weight Loss

9. Tracking and Monitoring Your Weight Loss

Track Your Food

Food Journaling

Healthy Food Choice Apps

Track Your Weight Loss

Conclusion

Also by HealthFit Publishing

INTRODUCTION

“Walking is man’s best medicine.”

HIPPOCRATES

How much time do you spend sitting around each day? It’s become a way of life in a modern world dominated by sedentary professions and advancing technology that can do almost anything for us without us having to get up and do it ourselves. Where has all of this modern advancement left us and what is its legacy? It’s giving us more sitting around than ever before, expanding waistlines, and a list of common medical conditions that just keeps getting longer. Aren’t you tired of sitting, feeling less than fantastic, and battling health conditions that are sucking the joy out of your life?

If you answered ‘yes,’ you should be tired of it all and you have come to exactly the right place. HealthFit Publishing is dedicated to bringing you high quality, accurate, and actionable information to help you improve your life. We understand your struggles with weight loss and poor health in a world that seems to be supporting unhealthy lifestyles left, right, and center. We have the same vision and goals as you do; a happier, fitter lifestyle through the power of proper nutrition and exercise. We’re here to tell you that, no matter how long you’ve been trying unrealistic diets and falling short of your goals, you can do this. You can achieve weight loss and health. Furthermore, you owe it to yourself. You deserve to be happy in your own skin and feel great.

You may have picked this title up and thought, “How is walking going to get me anywhere close to my dream of shedding these extra pounds?” Many people wonder that very same thing. After all, walking is gentle. How can it have the same weight loss power attributed to it as intense forms of exercise like running? That is where the humble walking workout is sorely underestimated.

Walking is one of the simplest and most effective forms of exercise. It’s practically the perfect exercise. Walking is one of the very few forms of exercise available that transcends capabilities, socio-economic barriers, and even age. It doesn’t matter who you are, whether you’re male or female, young or old, rich, poor, in the countryside or living it large in an urban jungle, walking is accessible to virtually everybody. It can be done anywhere, at any time. All you have to do is lace up a pair of walking shoes and get moving.

Walking is more than just exercise for your body. It’s an exercise for your mind and spirit as well. All it takes is as little as a 10-minute walk to give your mood a quick pick-me-up. It can also help change the way you see the world, honing your perception of smaller details and enhancing creativity. When you feel fitter, healthier, and get a dose of walking’s mood-boosting, feel-good vibes, you’re going to wonder why you didn’t start walking ages ago.

We’re going to tell you:

- What the health and weight loss benefits of walking are.

- How to set walking goals and cultivate the right mindset to achieve these goals.

- How to walk practically anywhere, from the great outdoors to more confined spaces.

- How to make the most of being indoors or working at home and sneaky tips and tricks for packing in steps toward your daily walking goal.

- What role nutrition plays in weight loss and why you should clean up your eating habits to complement your new walking program.

- How to track everything from your fitness progress to your weight loss and why tracking is so important.

- We will also provide you with a seven-week beginner walking program with tips on how to customize it to increase the difficulty as you get fitter and start pushing yourself more.

We’ve all suffered setbacks in our journey toward a healthy weight and feeling great. Many of us have been duped into following fad diets and flash-in-the-pan exercise routines, and fallen prey to yo-yo dieting. It’s everywhere. You can’t turn a corner or look at any form of media without being bombarded by the latest celebrity fitness tricks and the newest “must try” diet that will “solve all your weight loss woes.”

So, what makes walking different? Walking is tried, trusted, and has stood the test of time to prove its worth as a powerful health, fitness, and weight loss tool. For many people, it’s the only tool they really use. Walking is the best decision you will ever make for your health and happiness and we’re going to show you how to do it right, setting you up for success from the very first step. What are you waiting for? The life you want to live is right around the corner. Keep reading to get started and never look back.

ABOUT HEALTHFIT PUBLISHING

Healthfit Publishing is a health and wellness publishing brand. Our mission is to bring sound, actionable knowledge and advice straight from the health and wellness industry to readers from all walks of life. Our focus is on simple lifestyle changes that are easy to make for improving your overall quality of life.

We are made up of a diverse group of dynamic individuals who are passionate about inspiring and motivating others to achieve their health, fitness, and weight loss goals. Our team members are well-respected in their fields and bring expertise and experience in wellness, health, fitness, nutrition, and meticulous research to the table. We are dedicated to making healthy living accessible to anyone who is interested in transforming their life and boosting their happiness by improving their wellbeing.

Our team’s diversity is our strong point and the common thread that brings us together is a zest for living life to its fullest and a passion for healthy living. Exercise and good nutrition are just two of our top interests and it’s not hard to find inspiration in either.

PART I

1

ALL ABOUT WALKING

Live to walk. Walk to live. When someone mentions exercise, the image your mind conjures up probably involves high-intensity aerobics classes and running on a treadmill. This isn’t actually the case. We’re going to redefine how you view and interpret exercise.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines exercise as:

“physical activity that you do to make your body strong and healthy” (Cambridge Dictionary. (n.d.). Exercise)

By this definition, the activity that gets you moving to improve your physical health is exercise and that includes walking. Walking is the most basic form of exercise and it is accessible to pretty much everyone. Walking as exercise can and will help you lose weight and improve your health and I’m going to tell you why and how to walk your way to a slimmer, healthier, and happier you.

THE PERILS OF A SEDENTARY LIFESTYLE

Before we dive into the many health benefits of walking, perhaps we should take a closer look at why a sedentary lifestyle is so bad for you. Modern life has become increasingly sedentary. More and more people’s work is leaving them office-bound. Technology is one of the biggest culprits for fewer people spending time outdoors for leisure activities and entertainment. Commuting for hours a day to get to and from work often sees them sitting. Life, as we know it, is about sitting and all of this sitting is impacting health in ways you may not even realize.

The dangers of living a predominantly sedentary lifestyle include:

- Anxiety.

- Breast cancer.

- Cardiovascular disease.

- Colon cancer.

- Computer vision syndrome (eye strain caused by looking at a computer or tablet screen for extended periods of time).

- Depression.

- Diabetes.

- Gout.

- High blood pressure.

- Lipid problems.

- Lower back pain caused by herniated disks.

- Migraines.

- Mortality in adults.

- Obesity.

- Osteoporosis.

- Scoliosis.

- Skin problems including hair loss.

THE BENEFITS OF WALKING

You may not realize just how many benefits walking can offer you. Weight loss and improved physical fitness are two of the biggest and most obvious benefits, but those are not all that should motivate you to lace up a pair of walking shoes and start pounding the pavement.

Weight Loss

Walking will help you lose weight in several ways. When all of these effects come together, you will notice the pounds start melting away.

- Your metabolism will get a boost, which will lead to your body burning more calories per day than you do right now.

- Walking can help develop muscle and combat muscle loss as you get older. Muscle burns more calories than fat. The more muscle you have, the more calories your body will naturally burn every day.

- Walking may improve how your body responds to weight loss, reducing fat around your midsection.

- Walking can mimic high-intensity interval training (HIIT) when done in alternating intervals between a faster and slower pace. The result is increased calorie burn after you have finished your walk.

Accessibility and Suitability

Walking is accessible and suitable for virtually everybody.

- It won’t cost you a cent; no hefty gym membership fees required.

- You can also take a walk anywhere that is designated for pedestrians, from pavements, to walking paths, to the great outdoors.

- Walking is such a gentle form of exercise; it’s suitable for anybody regardless of their age or body type.

- You don’t need any equipment for walking and you can do it at any time.

Healthier Heart

Regular walking can help improve the health of your ticker, lowering your risk of developing serious heart disease and even recovering from having bypass surgery or a heart attack. Walking and following a healthy diet can reduce plaque build-up in the arteries supplying your heart with blood. It is also associated with a lower resting heart rate, meaning your heart doesn’t have to work as hard at rest and while getting physical.

High blood pressure is a factor in developing heart disease. Your heart is put under increased stress when it has to work harder to pump blood. This added stress can weaken the muscle over time and cause enlargement. A weaker heart muscle puts you at risk of heart failure. Another risk associated with an enlarged heart is a higher susceptibility to forming blood clots that could get lodged in an artery and prevent vital organs from getting blood.

Plaque buildup in your coronary arteries is the root of heart disease. It narrows the arteries supplying blood to the heart, limiting the amount of oxygen it gets. When your love muscle can’t get enough oxygen, it can’t function properly. As if that isn’t bad enough, should that plaque build-up get so bad it narrows the artery too much, a blood clot can get stuck and cut off blood flow to your heart. Your heart can also experience a lack of blood flow to it if the plaque completely blocks the artery. If either of these two scenarios happens, parts of your heart may die.

How does walking help? Walking helps make the blood vessels more flexible which allows blood to flow more easily through them, lowering your blood pressure. Walking also keeps the cells of your arteries healthier so that they can keep producing small amounts of nitrous oxide. Nitrous oxide produced by these arterial cells helps to prevent arterial blocks from occurring.

Diabetes

Taking a walk after meals is associated with lower blood sugar levels. Lowering your blood sugar levels reduces your risk of developing insulin resistance; a precursor to type 2 diabetes. Constantly having too much insulin in your blood eventually renders the insulin ineffective at removing glucose from your blood, increasing your overall blood sugar levels. Higher blood sugar levels could turn into type 2 diabetes if left untreated.

Note: Insulin resistance is discussed in further detail in Chapter 8.

TEN THOUSAND STEPS A DAY

Walking 10,000 steps a day may seem like a tall order, but you’d be surprised how easy it can be. Not only is it an achievable fitness goal, but it is also a great target for starting out your walking to weight loss journey.

Origins

In 1964, two things happened in Japan. The country was gearing up for the Tokyo Olympics and modern pedometers were introduced. Japan already had a growing awareness of increasing lifestyle-related diseases and that exercise could reduce the risk of developing those diseases. Hosting the Olympics increased the population’s fitness focus. Pedometers became readily available and helped people keep track of how many steps they took and how far they walked daily, contributing to their desire to increase their fitness.

In the Japanese language, manpo-kei translates to 10,000 steps. Those dedicated to taking more steps per day developed manpo-kei as a slogan and walking clubs started popping up in response to the increase in the number of walkers. Manpo-kei was set as the minimum daily step goal. A goal of 10,000 steps per day has since spread to walkers across the globe.

Between 2005 and 2006, the Ghent University in Belgium and the Queensland University-based School of Human Movement Studies collaborated to perform the Ghent Study. The study’s objective was to determine how valid this manpo-kei concept was for increasing overall health and fitness. The participants ranged from individuals interested in improved health and fitness to those who had an increased risk of developing chronic diseases such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes. The study was successful and participants who managed to make their manpo-kei daily step goal reported an improved feeling of overall well-being.

Application

Aiming for 10,000 steps per day is a good goal for anybody who is starting to walk for fitness. However, this could seem like a daunting task and an unachievable goal to those who lead a sedentary lifestyle. You can reach this goal by taking a 30- to 60-minute dedicated walk per day, but this might be asking a bit much of someone leading a very inactive lifestyle. Don’t worry, you can work your way up to that manpo-kei goal by first tracking your average daily steps using a pedometer of some kind. Once you have a good baseline to work with, begin adding 2,000 to 2,500 steps to your daily baseline and work your way up to 10,000 steps by gradually increasing the number of steps you take a day.

Diet and Intensity

Walking your way to weight loss and fitness is about more than just walking. Walking alone isn’t going to do all the work when it comes to shedding the weight. It is important to realize that taking a leisurely stroll and eating an unbalanced diet isn’t going to do much good. The intensity of your walking and following a healthy, calorie-controlled diet are essential factors for your walking for weight loss goal.

The speed at which you walk, the terrain you walk on, and even the style of walking all contribute to the calorie-burning ante of your walks. You don’t have to start out trying to out-walk champion speed walkers. Gradually step it up to increase your pace and vary the terrain to include more challenging inclines.

While exercise is a vital component of weight loss, fitness, and overall health, it is not effective on its own. Eating a healthy, balanced diet and creating a calorie deficit is crucial to success. Increasing your daily walking goal to 10,000 steps per day is a great way to start burning off those calories to create the deficit you need to lose weight.

We’ll take a more in-depth look at diet in a later chapter.

WALK TO WEIGHT LOSS WITH THE RIGHT MINDSET

When you embark on any life-changing journey, such as walking for weight loss, you must cultivate the right mindset to help you stay motivated. It’s not always going to be easy. There are going to be days you’re tempted to be lazy, bad weather days, and even other people who will try to get you to skip your walk in favor of other leisure activities. When you have the right mindset, you can resist the things that tempt you to cheat on your walking program under the premise of I’ll get back to it tomorrow. One day won’t hurt, right?

The problem with playing hooky on your walking goals is that it will only hurt you, not help you. It can be a slippery slope, leading to more and more days where you don’t reach your goal. Before you know it, you could be right back where you started in the first place. Get your head in the game to develop a rock-solid resolve to stay motivated and reach your goals. After all, you are doing this for yourself, and it’s what you really want, so don’t cheat yourself out of health, fitness, and the slimmer body you’re starting a walking program to achieve.

Setting Goals

Setting goals is your blueprint outlining what you want to achieve and how you’re going to get there. Goals are great motivators, but you must not set them willy-nilly. Setting goals is a process that requires consideration.

Set Realistic Goals

One of the key factors to achieving your goals is setting reasonable, realistic ones. Set your goals before you even start your walking program, but be realistic. All you are doing by setting big goals from the start is setting yourself up for failure.

Start out small. As the saying goes, “You must learn to crawl before you can learn to walk.” This is true of setting your walking goals. Set lower, more easily attainable goals in the beginning, to avoid discouraging yourself if you don’t meet them according to your timeline. Reaching goals is a great motivator, but not reaching them can put you off walking altogether.

Set goals that are realistic on a personal level. The internet is chock-full of amazing before and after photos, dramatic fast weight loss stories, and peppy blog posts about making significant progress at the speed of light. It can be difficult to separate reality from what we see online, even though it’s often unrealistic. Don’t try to set goals according to the standards or stories of others, but set them according to what you can realistically achieve for yourself.

When setting goals for your progress toward weight loss and overall health, don’t try to overload yourself with a dozen goals at once. Pick one goal and stick with it. Focusing on one goal at a time will help you measure success better. If you make progress toward that goal, you won’t be discouraged if you aren’t making progress toward another goal at the same time.

Important note: Tell your friends, family, and your general support system about your intention to make changes and to start walking your way to a slimmer, healthier, and happier you. Telling other people helps keep you motivated to hold yourself accountable for your efforts and it makes others hold you accountable as well.

Specific, Measurable, and Timed

When setting your goals, it’s not only important to make them realistic and personally achievable. It’s vital to make them:

- Specific.

- Measurable.

- Time-bound.

Be as specific as possible with each goal. One of the mistakes that people often make when setting goals is being too vague. For instance, many people set their goal as losing weight. What does this mean and how do you measure your progress and success if you don’t know what your goal weight is. Set a specific weight loss goal of X number of pounds. Setting a specific weight loss goal will make your progress measurable. You can measure how far you’ve come and how far you have to go to reach your goal.

The final factor about being specific and measurable is to set a time limit on how long you have to reach your goal. Even if you set a specific weight loss goal, if you don’t set a time by which you want to have reached that goal, you could be working toward it indefinitely. For example, if you set your weight loss goal as losing 10 pounds, if you don’t set a time limit, you could become lax with your walking to weight loss program and it could take you years to reach that goal. Set a realistic timeline. Don’t risk becoming discouraged because you haven’t reached a realistic goal in an unrealistic time frame.

Mission Statement: Making the Commitment

A mission statement, or intention statement, is a vital part of setting goals and sticking to them. It’s a summary of your goals and your commitment to meeting them. It also serves as a reminder and motivation to keep working toward your goals.

Your mission statement isn’t going to detail exactly how you’re going to go about achieving your goals. It’s there to help you maintain focus on the days when your motivation to walk wavers due to the stresses you experience on a daily basis. You may even alter your mission statement as you make progress, reach your current goals, and set new ones.

Mission Statement Components

Writing down a goal actually has the psychological effect of solidifying your determination to make it happen. Write it out with pen and paper; don’t just type it up on a computer or your phone. You can keep a digital copy on your gadgets for ease of access, but make sure you physically write it down.

Make time to read your mission statement daily. Rereading your goals and intentions is both a reminder and motivation to keep going. A mission statement won’t just include your goals; it will detail your values and motivation behind your goals.

When writing your mission statement, write down a specific, measurable goal and the timeframe you want to achieve it in. Your statement could look something like this:

- Walk 10,000 steps per day.

- Eat a healthy, balanced diet.

- Control my calorie intake, X number of calories per day.

Exercise: Write Your Mission Statement

- Write down your goals. Be specific.

- Write down why you want to make changes to reach those goals. What is your motivation for starting a walking program? Also, write down what you project the outcome would be if you didn’t make these changes to your lifestyle.

- Write down some important points you want to emphasize and keep them in mind often. They could be anything from ideas of how your life will be changed for the better to asking yourself crucial questions about why you are undertaking a walking program. Don’t try to write too many points down; pick a few that you can easily remember without having to refer to your mission statement to be reminded of them.

- Write down obstacles you think you may face along your weight loss journey. Try to think about things that would trigger you to not reach your goals. For instance, you may anticipate that a busy day will deter you from achieving your manpo-kei goal. Come up with reasonable counter solutions to help you overcome those obstacles.

- The last thing you are going to do is sign your mission statement. Not only does writing it down increase your determination, but signing it makes it personal, it seals the deal, and makes you even more determined.

Stay Motivated

Staying motivated can sometimes be difficult. You could be tempted to ‘cheat’ on your diet or you may be feeling tired or too busy to make your daily step goal. There are many things that could affect your motivation on any given day. Here are some tips to help you keep that motivation alive so that you do continue to work toward your goals.

- Read your mission statement regularly to remind yourself of the reasons behind making this change and starting a walking program.

- Focus on the progress you are making toward your goals instead of how far you may still have to go.

- Keep a walking and weight loss journal to track your daily diet (every single meal, snack, etc.), your walking and step count per day, how you feel, and the emotions you experience. You can even write down how you overcome obstacles to reflect upon when other obstacles crop up.

- Keep your self-talk and thoughts positive. Self-talk is the inner dialogue you have about yourself. If you tell yourself that you aren’t making progress, you are less likely to stay motivated to keep working toward your goal.

- Find walking groups or a walking buddy who will motivate you when you feel unmotivated and hold you accountable for your diet and walking progress. It also helps to make you feel less alone in your efforts when you have company to share the experiences with.

- If you know of anybody who has undertaken a walking program for health and weight loss, use them as a role model. If you don’t have a walking role model, find a person with a body structure similar to yours at your goal weight or size. When you have someone to look up to as having achieved the same kind of goals you have or having the body you are working toward, it can bump up your motivation on days when it’s lacking. After all, if they did it, so can you.

- Work walking into your lifestyle so that you aren’t trying to do something that just doesn’t fit into your daily life. For instance, if you cannot take a dedicated walk every day to make your step goal, find ways to get those steps in, like parking further from the grocery store doors or taking the stairs instead of an escalator or elevator.

- Celebrate reaching your goals. You don’t have to celebrate with a meal, especially if your goal is weight loss. You can treat yourself to some pampering, like a facial, or to something you’ve wanted, like that dress you’ve been eyeing in the store.

- If you don’t make the progress you expect, don’t get discouraged. Yes, you want to shed some extra weight, but it will also do wonders for your overall health. Ultimately, any weight you lose is good for your health and you are making an effort toward overall improvement. Every little bit of progress you make should be seen and celebrated as a win.

- Get a dog. Yes, really. A dog is not only a fantastic companion, but you will be responsible for walking your dog every day. This is a responsibility you can’t get out of just because you don’t feel like walking. A furry friend will also make walking less lonely and keep you motivated to get up and make your step goal.

- Find spaces to walk in that you enjoy, even if you can only make it to them once or twice a week. The idea is to make it as much fun as possible as often as possible. You are more likely to stay motivated if you enjoy your walks.

COMMON WALKING CONCERNS AND SOLUTIONS

Walking is simple and easy, but it’s not without its potential concerns. Don’t let common concerns such as shoddy knees or weather deter you from your walking plan, as we have the solutions for you right here.

What if the Weather Is Cold or Hot?

When you take dedicated walks outdoors, the weather can be of concern. Nobody wants to get hypothermia or heat stroke, so how do you get around the weather?

- Layer up when it’s cold outside.

- When it’s hot, try walking in the cooler early and later hours of the day. Alternatively, try going for a few short walks throughout the day.

- If the weather is really terrible, try walking indoors or using equipment such as a treadmill.

How Much Water Is Enough?

Staying hydrated is a very important part of taking a walk, especially if you’re going for a longer walk. Your hydration needs are as individual as you are and depend on various factors such as your weight, the temperature and humidity levels, and your individual perspiration rate. Due to the personal nature of your hydration needs, there is no cut and dried answer.

Weigh yourself before going for a walk and again when you get back. If you haven’t had any water to drink along the way, you should have lost weight. Each pound lighter you are suggests that you should drink 16 ounces of water to compensate. For instance, if you lost two pounds during your walk, you will need to drink 32 ounces of water.

Sports drinks are a good idea for longer walks of an hour or more. These drinks contain electrolytes to replenish the ones you are sweating out.

What About Boredom?

If you find that you are getting bored of the same old route day in and day out, try taking a different route, walking in a different area, or switching up the terrain. If changing to a different route isn’t an option, try joining a walking club or buddying up with a friend to keep you company. If neither of those options works for you, keep your mind busy during your walk by listening to an audiobook or podcast.

Important note: If you are listening to music, a podcast, an audiobook, or anything else during your walk, always make sure you can hear what is going on around you. Be careful not to get so absorbed in what you are listening to that you lose touch with your surroundings. It can become dangerous if you are unaware of what is happening around you.

What if There Isn’t Enough Time?

There is always time for a walk, even if it’s only 10 minutes. It can be difficult to make your step goal on days when you’re short on time, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up on your walking program altogether for the day. A 10-minute walk is better than no walk at all.

If you’re out of time to fit a full-length walk into your day, make those 10 minutes count by increasing the difficulty to bump up your calorie burn by considering these techniques:

- Make use of inclines.

- Vary your pace at intervals to get a HIIT walking workout in.

- Add some basic bodyweight exercises to your walks such as step-ups, lunges, and squats.

Do Your Knees Hurt?

Knee pain can occur either during or after a walk. Your first port of call to treat and prevent knee pain should be your footwear. Wearing the correct shoes that fit properly and aren’t worn is important to prevent a variety of uncomfortable or even painful niggles such as sore knees. Follow these tips as well:

- Make sure your stride is correct and that you are not taking steps that are too big or overstriding.

- Don’t push your weekly walking distance up by more than 10% week-to-week to prevent pushing your body too hard, too quickly.

- Ice painful body areas after your walk to decrease any inflammation.

- Stretch after your walk to increase your flexibility.

Important note: If your knee pain is extreme or the problem continues despite your efforts, it’s time to see a medical professional.

Can Side Stitches Be Prevented or Stopped?

What are side stitches really and what causes them? When you get a stitch in your side, it’s because your diaphragm is in spasm. Side stitches often happen when you are breathing hard or fast. To avoid side stitches:

- Allow your body to warm up properly at the beginning of your walk before stepping up the pace later on. This may help prevent a side stitch from starting.

- If you experience a side stitch that becomes very painful, slow down or even stop for a short while until the pain subsides.

- Avoid eating or drinking too much shortly before you go for a walk to help prevent side stitches.

What if You’re Sore After a Walk?

Sore and stiff muscles are a normal part of post-workout life. Even walking can result in post-walk soreness, especially if you’re a newcomer to the world of walking for weight loss and fitness. The initial soreness should ease up as you get into the swing of things and shouldn’t last more than a day or two or prevent you from going on your next dedicated walk. To limit the soreness and stiffness, always:

- Stretch out properly.

- Ice sore spots after your walk.

- Take a break from walking for a day or two until the soreness goes away.

- Take a short and easy recovery walk the day after a long, strenuous walk to get the muscles moving and blood flowing without putting too much pressure on your already sore body.

Can You Overtrain While Walking?

The answer is yes, you can overtrain while walking. Walking is like any other endurance exercise; you want to increase your distance, but not too quickly. Putting in too much mileage or upping the pace too quickly can lead to overtraining and injury. Take note of the following concepts:

- Prevent overtraining by only increasing your effort (either mileage or speed) by approximately 10% per week.

- Increase your recovery time between walks if you are still stiff and sore from your last walk by the time you need to go for your next one.

What About Lacking Energy?

If you get halfway through a walk and don’t feel like you have the energy to finish it, you may want to rethink your pre-walk nutrition. If you’re eating before a walk, what are you eating? If you’re not eating before a walk, how do you expect your body to have fuel to burn while you’re walking? Here are some ideas to provide adequate fuel for your walks:

- Eat simple carbohydrates that are easy to digest for quick energy release.

- If your walk is going to be 30 minutes or less, a piece of toast or a banana should keep you going.

- If you are going to be walking for more than an hour or will be increasing the intensity of your walk, consider something with a little more oomph like a smoothie or a small portion of oatmeal.

Tip: Find your ideal pre-walk nutrition by experimenting with different foods and keeping track of how what you eat makes you feel during and after your walk.

FOOTWEAR FOR SUCCESS

Walking shoes are called walking shoes for a reason. They have been designed specifically for that exact purpose. Their unique features make walking as efficient and comfortable as possible and you shouldn’t start a walking program without having the correct walking shoes first.

Wearing proper walking shoes that fit well will not only make your walk more comfortable, but they can also actually prevent you from suffering injuries that may put you off walking. Some of the injuries good shoes can help prevent include knee pain, calluses, and painful blisters. So, how do you go about choosing the perfect shoe to get you started and keep you walking?

Basic Parts of a Walking Shoe

Before you can even start shopping for and trying on walking shoes, you need to know what the basic parts of the shoes are. Knowing which parts are which and what they do will help you look for and recognize a perfect fit:

- Achilles tendon protector: The very back upper part of the shoe that rests against your Achilles tendon and holds the shoe around your heel to reduce stress on your Achilles tendon.

- Heel collar: The upper part of the shoe that fits around your ankle, cushioning it and holding the shoe in place.

- Toe box: The upper front part of the shoe where your toes go should be spacious enough to prevent blisters and calluses.

- Toe cap: The very front part of the shoe upper around the front of your toes.

- Upper: The upper front part of the shoe that holds your foot in the shoe. Common materials for an upper include synthetic material, mesh, and leather. When looking for a walking shoe, consider a mesh upper for a lightweight and breathable shoe.

- Insole: The top layer of the bottom of the shoe that your foot comes in contact with. It supports the arch of your food and offers cushioning. Some insoles are made to be removable so they can be cleaned of sweat and dirt.

- Midsole: The layer of the bottom of the shoe between the outsole and the insole. It further supports and cushions your foot to decrease the impact of your foot hitting the ground. Common midsole materials include air, foam, and gel.

- Outsole: The bottom layer of the sole that comes in contact with the ground. The tread and grooves of the outsole offer grip.

Foot Shape

Foot shape is something you should consider when shopping for a pair of walking shoes. The shoe should fit your foot; your foot shouldn’t be forced to fit the shoe. Comfortable walking shoes are crucial to your enjoyment of walking and sticking with your walking program. After all, who’s going to want to walk if their feet hurt?

Length and Width

How wide and long are your feet? Shoes come in a variety of shapes and sizes, just like feet. Ensure that your shoes fit snugly. Too wide, too narrow, or not enough toe room and you could end up with blisters, calluses, hammertoes, or bunions; all of which are painful.

Arches

Your foot arches help your feet to adapt to different surfaces and distribute your weight evenly across your feet. They are made up of bones, muscles, tendons, and ligaments that move. While arches may vary slightly from person to person, there are three main types of arches:

High arches: High-arched feet may not absorb impact well, potentially contributing to strain placed on your joints and muscles. Shoes with cushioning for shock absorption and a curved sole shape are the most suitable.

Low arches: Low-arched feet are commonly referred to as flat feet. Choose a walking shoe with motion control for stability and a straighter sole shape.

Neutral arches: As the name implies, neutral arches are neither significantly flat nor too arched. Opt for a shoe with a straighter or semi-curved sole shape and firm midsole, and some stability at the back of the foot.

Fit Tips

Your feet swell during the day. The best time of day for shoe shopping is later in the day when they have swollen up a bit. Shoe shopping first thing in the morning could fool you into buying shoes that will be uncomfortably tight for afternoon walks.

- Try walking shoes on wearing the same socks you will wear for walking.

- Shop at a store that has a variety of styles. Try on different brands and types of shoes to find your perfect fit.

- Don’t just buy the same size and arch shape you have always bought. Your foot shape can and may actually change over time.

- It’s normal to have one foot that is bigger than the other. Try on shoes in a size that fits your bigger foot.

- Don’t try to convince yourself that a shoe will mold itself to your foot after a few walks. Shoes should be completely comfortable to walk in from the moment you first put them on. Don’t just try on one shoe and buy the pair. Try on both shoes, wiggle your toes around, and take a walk around the store to test them out.

- The shoe should fit snugly, not tightly.

- Ladies with wide feet shouldn’t be shy to try on men’s shoes. Men’s shoes are typically cut bigger and could be more comfortable.

- Toe room is important. If you can’t wiggle your toes or the tip of your longest toe isn't finger-width from the front of the shoe, try on a bigger size.

A Word on Worn-Out Shoes

Every shoe has a best before timeframe, unless you never wear them. As you walk, your shoes will incur wear and tear. You should replace your shoes regularly, even if they still look and feel fine. There could be wear that isn’t visible to you, but could affect your walking comfort over time, such as a loss of support or not absorbing impact shock as well anymore.

When should you replace your walking shoes?

- After 300 to 400 miles walked in them.

- The outsole is showing obvious signs of wear.

- They aren’t as comfortable as they used to be.

TAKING THE NEXT STEP

So, now you know why walking is such a great form of exercise for health and weight loss, you’ve set your goals, and you’ve picked out the perfect pair of walking shoes. It’s time to take the next step in your walking for weight loss journey. It’s also time to get started with a good walking fitness program to start shedding those pounds.

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YOUR WALKING FITNESS PROGRAM: BEFORE YOU START

Deciding to get up and start walking for fitness and weight loss is the first step in the right direction, but that doesn’t mean you should just slip on a pair of walking shoes and hit the streets. You need to have a game plan in place. You need to build your walking program, tailor it to accommodate your personal fitness level and abilities, and to meet your own goals.

BEFORE YOU START

Before you can start a walking fitness program, there are a few things you need to take into account to ensure that you are getting the most out of walking.

Consult a Doctor

Consult your family doctor about starting a walking program. This is especially important if you:

- Are pregnant.

- Have high blood pressure.

- Are a diabetic.

- Have a diagnosed heart condition.

- Experience chest pain, either with or without physical exertion.

- Are older than 65 years and not doing any form of exercise right now.

- Frequently experience faintness or dizziness.

- Have been leading a sedentary lifestyle for 12 months or more.

- Have any other medical condition or concern not mentioned.

Important note: It is always recommended to consult a medical practitioner before you make any lifestyle changes that may impact your health. Only a trained medical professional can give you the all-clear and provide advice based on your medical history and current health.

Get the Right Gear

Invest in basic walking gear such as shoes and clothing. You don’t have to fork out for expensive fashion-forward brands, but you should invest in quality shoes and clothing. What you walk in will make a difference to how enjoyable your walking is.

- Wear loose, lightweight clothing that fits comfortably. Heavy fabrics may chafe.

- Your base layer should be made of a sweat-wicking fabric irrespective of hot or cold weather.

- Layer up in light layers that can be taken off if the temperature rises during your walk.

- Choose athletic socks over cotton socks to help prevent blisters.

- Pay special attention to your shoes. Please refer to Chapter 1 for a guide to picking out the right walking shoes.

Walking Technique

It may seem silly. You’ve been walking all your life since you took your first step as a toddler, right? You walk every day. Yes, you can walk but are you walking properly? Pay attention to your posture when you walk. Are you using your arms? Are you walking with the correct technique to prevent injury? Walking is a safe form of exercise, but you can still injure yourself if you aren’t walking with the proper technique.

- Keep your head up with your chin in a neutral position. Don’t look down or hold your head up too high.

- Lengthen your spine. Don’t slouch.

- Shoulders back and down. Don’t lift or round your shoulders.

- Keep your elbows slightly bent and swing your arms gently from the shoulder. Don’t swing them across your body or up too high. Swing your arms at midsection height, not chest height. Swinging your arms during walking helps turn a walk into a full-body workout and can increase your calorie burn by between 5 and 10 percent.

- Keep your hips level while walking. Don’t roll your hips.

- Steps should be taken from heel to toe, placing your heel down first in a rolling motion toward your toes to push off the ground again.

- Keep stride length comfortable. Don’t overstride.

- Determine your ideal stride length by standing with your feet shoulder-width apart. Shift your weight forward and lean forward from your ankles. When you feel as though you are about to fall forward, put your foot out only as much as you need to prevent falling. The distance between your feet is your ideal stride length regardless of the type and pace of walking.

- Always maintain one foot on the ground at all times.

- Try not to slap your feet against the ground; it should be a controlled, smooth movement throughout your walk.

- Avoid taking longer strides, but rather take quicker steps to increase your speed.

WARM UP, COOL DOWN, AND STRETCH

Warming up, cooling down, and stretching are important aspects of walking for fitness and they are often overlooked. Perhaps it’s because people don’t see warming up and stretching as exercise. Perhaps they don’t understand just how much warming up and stretching can actually benefit them. Whatever the reason for others overlooking a good warm-up and stretch, you shouldn’t, and here’s why:

- Warming up gets your body moving and increases your body temperature. Your muscles will thank you for warming up because they get more oxygen as they get warmer. In turn, your muscles can move better, contract, and relax more easily, preventing muscle strain. As a muscle, your heart also warms up for action which prevents unnecessary strain during your walk.

- When your muscles are warmed up and more elastic, your risk of injury decreases. If you’ve ever pulled or strained a muscle, you’ll know how painful it can be and how long it takes to heal properly. Pulling or straining a leg muscle on a walk is no fun, especially when you consider that you have to use that muscle to get back home again, which could cause further injury.

- Warming up and stretching your muscles further prevents injury by increasing your flexibility and range of motion. The more flexible you are and the better your range of motion, the less restricted your movement and the less chance there is of suffering injury if you do happen to stumble.

Important note: In times gone by, people may have stretched before getting their muscles warmed up. Don’t make that mistake. Always stretch after your warm-up. Getting your muscles warm and elastic or stretchy will improve the efficacy of stretching and prevent injury from trying to stretch out cold, stiff muscles.

How to Warm Up

Warm up before you stretch it all out. A simple warm-up of marching in place or walking at a slow pace will do the trick. You just want to get your body moving and your muscles warmed up. You don’t want to put your body through its paces just yet. Warming up shouldn’t take too long—only a few minutes—but we’ll give you a better idea of how long to warm up when we get to your walking program.

Stretches for Walking

Feet: Without your feet, you can’t walk. Your feet are jam-packed with muscles, tendons, ligaments, and joints. Warming and stretching your feet before a walk can increase the range of motion and flexibility in your ankles, preventing injuries like sprains.

Calves: These powerful muscles at the back of your lower legs do a lot of work while you’re walking, stretching, and contracting with each step. Stretching your calf muscles helps to prevent cramping during and after your walk.

Quadriceps: Your quads are the large muscles on the fronts of your thighs. These powerhouses support your stability and even your stamina on long walks. Stretching helps prevent strains and cramps.

Hamstrings: Your hamstrings are the large muscles at the backs of your thighs, leading up toward your glutes. You can really feel them working if you are walking uphill. You don’t want these muscles to seize up, cramp, or strain during or after your walk.

Hips: In particular, your hip flexors. These muscles run through your hips and allow you to pick your legs up when taking a step. Stretching helps lengthen them so that your range of motion while walking is better for a more comfortable walk.

The Basic Stretches

Hold each of the below stretches for 10 to 20 seconds with the exception of the ankle rotation which can be done in fluid motions. You should feel a light tension or stretching; don’t force the stretch further than is comfortable to prevent injury.

If you need some extra stability while performing the stretches, hold onto a solid object. You can use pretty much anything that won’t fall over if you wobble; a wall, lamp post, fence post, whatever is close by will do the job.

Ankle Rotation

You can perform an ankle rotation while sitting or standing.

- Flex your right foot, pointing your toes to feel a contraction under your foot and a stretch across the top.

- Flex your foot to bring your toes up toward you. This will stretch the underside of your foot and contract the top.

- Flex your foot to the left and right, stretching both sides of your right ankle.

- Slowly rotate your right ankle in a circle, clockwise and counterclockwise.

- Repeat the exercise with your left foot.

Calf Stretch

You can perform this stretch with or without the support of a wall or chair.

- Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart.

- Step forward with your right leg and bend the knee slightly.

- Keep your left (back) leg straight with your heel firmly planted on the ground.

- Lean forward so that you feel the stretch down the back of your calf muscle.

- Repeat with the left leg.

Hamstring Stretch

You can perform this hamstring stretch while sitting on the ground or standing up.

Sitting on the ground:

- Sit with your legs together and stretched out in front of you.

- Flex both feet upward, bringing your toes toward you, pointing up.

- Lean forward from your hips, stretching your arms out in front of you toward your toes to touch them.

- Only lean as far forward as is comfortable. If you can’t touch your toes, don’t force yourself.

- You should feel this stretch down the back of your thighs.

Standing:

- Stand up straight with your feet together and flat on the floor.

- Slowly bend forward from the hips, stretching your arms out toward your toes.

- Bend over as far as is comfortable for you.

Resistance Band Hamstring Stretch

- Sit with your legs together and stretched out in front of you.

- Flex both feet upward, bringing your toes toward you, pointing up.

- Loop a resistance band, towel, or rump rope around the bottom or arch of your right foot.

- Holding onto both ends, lie back on the ground.

- Bend your left knee, but keep your left foot flat on the ground.

- Raise your right leg up until it’s at a 90-degree angle to the ground.

- If you can’t make it all the way to a 90-degree angle, only go as far as is comfortable while still feeling the stretch down the back of your thigh.

- Keep the stretching leg as straight as possible, but don’t lock your knee.

- Repeat with your left leg.

Quad Stretch

You can use a wall or chair to help you maintain your balance during this stretch.

- Stand up straight with your feet shoulder-width apart.

- Bend your right knee, bringing your right foot up toward the back of your right thigh.

- Reach around with your right hand to grab hold of your right ankle and bring it further up toward your bottom.

- Your bent right knee should be pointing straight down toward the ground.

- Don’t forget to tuck your tailbone in and feel the stretch along the front of your thigh.

- Repeat with the left leg.

Groin Stretch

You might want to have a chair handy for balance support during this stretch.

- Stand with your feet wider than shoulder-width apart, but not too wide.

- Keep your right foot pointing straight ahead.

- Turn your left foot so that your toes are pointing out at a 45-degree angle.

- Keeping your right foot facing forward, lunge in the direction of your right foot.

- Don’t lunge too far; only go as far as you can or until your knee is over your toes, but not past them.

- Repeat with the right leg.

Leg Swings

- Stand up straight with your feet shoulder-width apart.

- Lift your right foot off the ground and move your leg forward, tapping your toe on the ground.

- Move your leg out to the side, tapping your toes on the floor.

- Move your leg back, tapping your toes on the floor.

- Repeat with the left leg.

Hip Stretch

- Stand up straight with your feet shoulder-width apart.

- Raise your left foot off the ground, bend the knee, and bring your left foot up to cross the ankle over your right thigh.

- Slowly squat down as if you are about to sit down.

- Sit into the stretch with your right leg bent.

- Place a hand on your bent left knee and gently push down.

- You should feel the stretch in your hips.

- Repeat with the other leg.

Tip: If you can’t manage to balance, even when using a chair or other support, perform this stretch while sitting on a chair or bench.

Shoulder Stretch

It’s not only your legs that are working while you’re walking. You are swinging your arms, and giving your shoulders a workout as well.

- Stand up straight with your feet shoulder-width apart.

- Roll your shoulders back and down.

- Raise your left arm and bring it across your chest.

- Bend your right arm at the elbow and use your right hand to gently push or pull your left arm into your chest toward your right shoulder.

- Repeat with the right arm.

The Importance of Cooling Down

So, you’ve warmed up, had a good walk, and now you’re ready to relax, but you’re not quite done yet. Before you can put your feet up and relax, you need to cool down with another round of stretching. We know that warming up helps to prevent injury, but what’s so special about cooling down that you can’t overlook it?

Cooling down helps prevent a sudden drop in blood pressure after a walk. Yes, walking raises your blood pressure, especially if you’re walking at a fast pace and high intensity. You will also notice that your hands and feet start to swell a bit during your walk. Cooling down properly after a walk is like gradually bringing your body down from a high. It helps to stabilize your heart rate and blood pressure without allowing them to drop too quickly. It also prevents blood pooling in your lower arms and legs when your blood pressure drops as your heart rate slows down.

Cooling down stretches will help prevent what is known as DOMS or delayed onset muscle soreness. Walking is exercise and can cause muscle stiffness and soreness, especially in the beginning. It’s a natural part of being physically active, but too much stiffness and soreness can hold you back from following your walking fitness program. Cool down stretches after your walk help remove lactic acid build-up in your muscles and prevent post-walk soreness.

WALKING FITNESS PROGRAM: BASIC GUIDELINES

We’ll provide you with a full and clear beginner seven-week walking fitness program later in the chapter. It will provide a complete beginner walking plan with a detailed blueprint of how to get started on your walking for weight loss journey. Before we get to that, let’s take a look at some simple guidelines and variables that will help you build your own walking program that can be customized to suit your personal needs. You can also use these guidelines to alter and tailor the beginner program as you progress.

Beginner Guidelines

- Walk at a brisk pace of 3 to 3.5 miles per hour. Walking a mile should take approximately 17 to 20 minutes.

- For the first three weeks, start out walking 10 minutes per day.

- After three weeks, bump up your walking time by five minutes each week until you can take a 30-minute walk six days per week.

Intermediate Guidelines

- Walk at a pace of 3.5 to 4.5 miles per hour. Walking a mile should take approximately 13 to 17 minutes.

- Take a 3-mile walk three to five times a week. A 3-mile walk should take around 45 minutes.

- If you can’t manage a pace of 3.5 to 4.5 miles per hour, slow the pace down and extend the distance/walking time.

Advanced Guidelines

- If you can comfortably manage walking according to the intermediate guidelines above, it may be time to switch things up a bit and take your walking to the next level.

- Take your walk to the beach, if you live on the coast. The soft, loose sand will increase the resistance of your walk, making it more challenging.

- Add inclines to increase intensity.

- Go off road by taking a hike in a scenic area with variable terrain for increasing intensity on different sections of your walk.

- If your regular walking route takes you past staircases, start climbing those stairs as part of your walking program.

- Add some light handheld or wrist weights and keep swinging those arms to increase the amount of effort you exert. Start off with lighter weights of around two to three pounds.

- You could give racewalking a try. Racewalking is fast-paced at five to nine miles per hour and you may be surprised to discover that there are local groups, organizations, and even competitions in your area.

- Give rucking a try.

What is Rucking?

Rucking is the term for a popular way to up your walking ante based on an age-old military practice. The military has been practicing rucking for centuries from the Spartans to the Romans to modern-day soldiers. Rucking is considered to be the foundation upon which Special Forces training is based. It is the practice of carrying a rucksack, or backpack, loaded with supplies and provisions for miles or even days at a time.

Modern walkers have adopted the concept to bump up the intensity of their walking workout. Rucking has become a fun and effective variation that takes traditional walking to a whole new level.

- Get a rucksack or backpack. Invest in a good quality bag that fits comfortably and distributes weight evenly across your shoulders and back. Thickly padded shoulder straps offer added comfort, especially if you’re loading the rucksack up with heavier weight.

- Add a challenging, but comfortable, amount of weight to the bag. You don’t want to make the weight too heavy when you start out. You can gradually increase the weight as you get stronger and fitter. A good starting point is to use 10 percent of your body weight and gradually increase it.

- You can use just about anything to weigh down your rucksack, but it should be comfortable, not oddly shaped, and not poke, bump, or chafe while walking. Some ideas include sandbags, one-gallon water bottles, and specialized rucking weight plates.

- Ensure that the weight is evenly distributed and stable close to your back. The rucksack should sit high against your back, not sag low against your lower back.

- Strap on your weighted rucksack and start walking. When you start rucking, try to aim for a 30-minute walk and build yourself up to walking for an hour or more at a time.

Benefits of Rucking

- Improves heart health because it elevates your heart rate more than traditional walking does.

- More effort exerted means more calories burned.

- Rucking is less stressful and lower impact than running, but offers similar benefits in terms of fitness and weight loss.

- The practice of carrying a weighted bag on your back could help improve poor posture caused by spending hours in front of a computer. When done right, the force exerted on your shoulders helps to pull them back into alignment for better posture.

- Carrying a loaded rucksack while walking helps tone and shape muscles while building strength.

Strength Training

When you have worked up your walking fitness, adding strength training can help tone and increase lean muscle mass for improved fitness and help keep the pounds off.

Lower Body

While walking, your lower body is the target of the workout. Some types of walking, like Nordic walking, will throw in a bit of an upper-body workout, but the bulk of the work is being done from the waist down. You can tone and improve muscle in your lower body by adding some basic strength training to your walking workout which would create a HIIT effect. Your workout would alternate between the cardiovascular workout of walking and strength training.

Here are some suggestions for adding strength training to your walking workout:

Squats

Walk a certain distance, such as a city block, stop and perform 10 squats. Repeat this pattern three or more times during your walk. You can increase the number of times you stop to do squats as your leg strength increases.

Walking Lunges

Determine a certain distance, such as a city block. Walk for that distance and then perform walking lunges for the same distance before switching back to walking. Repeat the pattern three or more times during your walk. You can increase the number of walking lunge intervals as your leg strength increases.

For example:

- Walk a block.

- Perform lunges for a block.

- Walk a block.

- Perform lunges for a block.

It is vital that you use the correct form when performing lunges, not only to get the maximum benefit, but also to prevent injury.

- Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart.

- Step forward with your right leg.

- Bend your right knee until the knee is over your right ankle, but not past your toes.

- Bend your left knee and lower it toward the ground.

- Maintain a straight back throughout.

- Press down through your right heel to return to a standing position. Avoid pushing off with your left foot.

- Step forward with your left leg and repeat the process.

Important note: Lunges can be challenging. It is important to perform walking lunges only over a distance that is comfortable for you. You don’t have to cover a whole city block. If you can only do two or three walking lunges to begin with, that’s fine. You can work your way up to longer distances as you get stronger.

Modifications

If you are walking indoors, instead of using distance to indicate your strength training intervals, use a timer. Time yourself for a set period of time, such as five minutes. Alternate walking with lunges and squats at five-minute intervals.

If you cannot perform full squats and lunges, go halfway down, or as far as is comfortable for you. You can work your way up to full lunges and squats as you build leg strength.

Upper Body

Walking targets your lower body and cardiovascular system. Bring some upper body strength training into the mix for a total body workout. The best part is that you don’t need heavy or bulky weights to perform the following exercises. They are all calisthenic exercises that use your body weight and can be performed virtually anywhere.

Shoulder-Blade Squeezes

- Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart.

- Raise your arms to shoulder height and bend your elbows to 90 degrees, fingers pointing toward the sky. This is called the goal-post position.

- Pull your elbows back by squeezing your shoulder blades together. It may help to imagine squeezing a stress ball between your shoulder blades.

- Release the squeeze and bring your elbows back into position.

Perform shoulder-blade squeezes for a determined distance, such as a city block, and repeat the pattern three or more times during your walk. If you are walking indoors, perform the shoulder-blade squeezes for 30 seconds at a time at set time intervals during your walk.

Lat Pull-Down

- Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart.

- Extend your arms up and outward at an angle from your sides. It may help to imagine that you are using a wide grip to hold onto a bar.

- Bend your elbows and pull your arms down until your upper arms are parallel to the ground and are roughly at shoulder height. You should feel your shoulder blades squeezing together. Imagine pulling that bar down until it is in front of your face.

- Relax your shoulders and return your arms to the starting position.

Perform lat pull-downs for a determined distance, such as a city block, and repeat the pattern three or more times during your walk. If you are walking indoors, perform the lat pull-downs for 30 seconds at a time at set time intervals during your walk.

TAILORING YOUR WALKING PROGRAM

There are three things that you can change when tailoring your walking fitness program to make it either easier or harder:

- Intensity.

- Frequency.

- Time.

Intensity

Intensity is how much effort you are putting into your walking. There are three ways to measure the intensity of your walking:

1. Talk test.

2. RPE scale self-measurement of your exertion.

3. Heart rate.

Talk Test

You can determine how much effort you are putting into your walk by talking out loud while walking.

- Easy, leisurely, or lifestyle walking: You can hold a conversation even if it’s a bit breathy.

- Fitness walking: You can only have bits and pieces of a more breathless conversation while talking.

- When taking a high-intensity walk, you shouldn’t be able to hold a conversation during your peak-intensity intervals.

RPE

RPE means the rate of perceived exertion. This measurement of how much effort you are putting into your workout uses a scale of 1 to 10. Unlike using a heart rate monitor, RPE is measured according to your own personal judgment of how hard you think you are exerting yourself. You can use a combination of aspects to rate your perceived exertion as accurately as possible. These aspects include:

- How fatigued you feel.

- Your heart rate.

- Your rate of breathing.

- How much you are sweating.

A rating of 1 means that your walk is super easy and a rating of 10 means that you are giving it maximum effort.

- Easy, leisurely, or lifestyle walking: You should be rating your effort between 4 and 6.

- Fitness walking: You should be rating your effort between 6 and 8.

- High-intensity walking: You should be rating your effort between 8 and 9.5.

Heart Rate

Your heart rate is directly linked to how much you are exerting yourself. Using your heart rate to determine how hard your body is working is the most accurate way to tell how much effort you are putting in. Determine your maximum heart rate:

220 – your age = your maximum heart rate (For example, if you are 30 years old, 220 - 30 = 190 beats per minute is your maximum heart rate.)

Ideal heart rates for different types of walking:

- Easy, leisurely, or lifestyle walking: 50 to 60 percent of your max heart rate.

- Fitness walking: 60 to 75 percent of your max heart rate.

- High-intensity walking: 75 to 95 percent of your max heart rate.

Tip: Don’t focus on a specific heart rate, but aim for a walk that pushes your heart rate up and down across the entire ideal range for the amount of effort you want to be putting in. For example, if your maximum heart rate is 200 beats per minute and you go for a fitness walk; you should try to keep your heart rate between 120 and 150 beats per minute (60 – 75 percent).

Important note: Consult your doctor about your maximum heart rate and what your target heart rate range while walking should be if you have a heart condition, are pregnant, or take any form of medication.

Frequency

How often you walk for fitness will depend on what your goals are and how quickly you achieve them. The minimum number of times per week you should be getting your heart rate up, according to the American College of Sports Medicine, is three times weekly. If you want to lose weight through walking, you should increase that number.

A factor that influences how often you walk is the intensity of your walk. If you prefer to walk at a lower intensity, you should be walking more often. If you prefer to walk at a higher intensity, you can cut back on the number of walks you take per week. In fact, if you are walking at a very high intensity for every walk, you should be taking at least one or two days a week off to prevent overtraining, injury, and fatigue.

Time

How long your walks are depends on both the intensity and the frequency of your walks as well as a few other factors.

Intensity: High-intensity walks are likely to be shorter while low-intensity walks will be longer.

Frequency: How many times a week you choose to walk based on how intense those walks are.

Fitness level: The higher your fitness level, the longer you can sustain both low-intensity and high-intensity walks.

Personal Schedule: How much time you can dedicate to walking every day comes down to your lifestyle and schedule. You may have the time to dedicate to long walking sessions at a lower intensity. You may only have enough time to dedicate to a shorter walk at a higher intensity to meet the same goals. You can always break your walk up into several short sessions during the day if you don’t have enough time to dedicate to a single walk.

Goals: How much of your available time you dedicate to walking will be influenced by your goals. If you are training toward a weight loss or walking event goal, you are probably going to spend more of your free time walking than if you are walking to maintain health and a stable weight.

THE IMPORTANCE OF TAILORING YOUR PROGRAM

Every person is different. What one person can do comfortably may be a tall order for another person. We’re about to provide you with a general seven-week beginner walking program to use as a guideline. It is important to take everything you now know from this chapter and apply that knowledge to tweaking the beginner plan so that it suits your current level of fitness and your personal goals. If you are fitter or not quite fit enough, you can adjust the variables to make the plan your own.

3

SEVEN-WEEK BEGINNER WALKING FITNESS PROGRAM

To get started walking your way to a slimmer you, here’s a seven-week program that you can use as-is or as a starting point to build your own program. The program starts off with walking sessions of 10 minutes (or less) and aims to increase that to 30 minutes over the first three weeks.

The days of the week are divided as follows:

- Main walking workout days are Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

- Walking on Tuesdays and weekends is optional to start.

- Fridays are for rest or alternative activities.

- The suggested days are only a guideline. You can arrange your walking program to suit your personal schedule.

WEEK ONE

Try for a walking pace of 3 to 3.5 miles per hour. Slow it down to 2.7 to 3 miles per hour if you can’t manage that pace.

Remember, walking on Tuesdays and over weekends is optional to start with, as you get used to your new walking program.

WEEK TWO

Try for a walking pace of 3 to 3.5 miles per hour. Slow it down to 2.7 to 3 miles per hour if you can’t manage that pace.

Remember, walking on Tuesdays and over weekends is optional to start with, as you get used to your new walking program.

WEEK THREE

Try for a walking pace of 3 to 3.5 miles per hour.

Remember, walking on Tuesdays and over weekends is optional to start with, as you get used to your new walking program.

WEEK FOUR

Week four of the beginner program sees a five-minute increase of your daily walking time and Tuesdays are no longer optional. Try for a walking pace of 3 to 3.5 miles per hour. Try to start including one day over the weekend.

WEEK FIVE

Another 5-minute increase of your daily walking time is in store for you in week five. Try for a walking pace of 3 to 3.5 miles per hour. Try to start including one day over the weekend.

WEEK SIX

You guessed it, increase your walking time by another 5 minutes. Try for a walking pace of 3 to 3.5 miles per hour. Include one day over the weekend.

WEEK SEVEN

Tack on that last 5 minutes in week seven to reach a total walking time of 30 minutes. Try for a walking pace of 3 to 3.5 miles per hour (or faster if you can manage). Include one day over the weekend.

TAKING YOUR WALKING PROGRAM FURTHER

After week seven, you can work your way up to an intermediate level of walking. You can do this by following the intermediate guidelines above. Additional tips include:

- Continue to increase your walking time by 5 - 10 minutes per week.

- If you cannot extend your walking time, increase your pace.

- If you increase your walking time, but can’t sustain an increased pace for the whole walk, walk in intervals of slower and faster pace until you can walk at a faster pace for the whole walk.

- If you can increase your pace for the whole walk, but can’t sustain the increased pace for every walk of the week, try alternating between an increased pace for one walk and a slower pace for the next, etc.

Once you are ready to move on to a more advanced walking level, try following the advanced guidelines in chapter 2. You can also:

- Continue to gradually increase your pace to a power-walking pace. If you are already at a power-walking pace and feel up to increasing the pace further, try alternating between power walking and a slow jog in intervals. (Consult your doctor before including a slow jog pace, especially if you have past injuries or joint trouble.)

- Take short breaks from walking to alternate between walking and doing bodyweight exercises such as lunges, squats, press-ups, etc.

WALKING OUTDOORS

One of the best ways to naturally challenge yourself and increase the efficacy of your walking for weight loss fitness program is to take your walking outdoors. Yes, a treadmill is a great thing and it has a time and a place. However, there is much more you can enjoy and take advantage of when you walk outdoors. In the next chapter, we’re going to tell you why you should walk outdoors and the different ways you can walk outside.

4

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO OUTDOOR WALKING

Walking outdoors is immensely rewarding and offers a variety of benefits over just stepping onto a treadmill. It’s not just weight loss that will be a benefit received from walking outdoors. It will create a happier, healthier you through improving your holistic health, including mental and emotional well-being. Let’s take a look at the various benefits and types of outdoor walking you can take advantage of.

BENEFITS OF WALKING OUTDOORS

Walking outdoors has the same benefits as walking indoors or anywhere else as far as your physical health is concerned but it has a few aces up its sleeve as an added bonus. Walking outdoors offers walkers these added benefits.

Get Some Fresh Air

There is a common saying in stressful situations; people often say they are going to ‘get some fresh air’. This phrase was coined for a reason. Getting outside, out of the stuffiness of indoors, makes you feel better but why?

Oxygen; the simple answer is oxygen. It helps your brain function better, heal from damage such as free radicals, and even grow. Brain function is influenced by oxygen levels and we all know those aren’t always stellar indoors. Getting outside for a walk gives you a chance to breathe in more oxygen for happier, healthier ‘mental muscle’.

Reduce Your Stress

It’s suggested that spending a lot of time indoors can contribute to your stress levels while getting enough outdoor time among green scenery can help alleviate stress. When you take a walk outside to ‘get some fresh air’ part of that feel-good effect is that your brain produces the mood-regulating neurotransmitters, endorphins. They are essentially your good-mood chemicals in your brain. Essentially, walking outdoors is like a dose of natural therapy that can reduce your stress, thereby reducing your negative thoughts, and create a happier, healthier emotional and mental state.

More Vitamin D

Your body can only make vitamin D when your skin is exposed to sunlight. Vitamin D is an essential nutrient your brain needs to function. It has been suggested that this vitamin reduces inflammation in the brain, offers neuron protection, and even helps your brain make neurotransmitters and aids in nerve growth. A sedentary lifestyle is typically lived indoors, away from sunlight, so getting outdoors for your walk provides you with a healthy dose of sunshine.

TYPES OF OUTDOOR WALKING

Some types of outdoor walking are better suited for more rugged, natural terrain while others require a more structured natural approach like city parks and urban green spaces. When you think about walking outdoors, you probably conjure up a mental image of hiking in majestic mountainous areas, but that’s not where the possibilities end. Walking outdoors simply means getting out of the house or office. The more natural the setting you are walking in, the better. However, you can easily take your walking to a nearby urban park or green area for a variety of different types and styles of walking to switch up your routine and bust boredom.

Hiking

If you are not used to hiking, even if you aren’t a complete novice walker, it can seem like a daunting task. Long, hard trails up steep mountainsides may come to mind. While that is a cookie cutter idea of hiking, it’s not necessarily the case. Hiking comes in all shapes and sizes, from short, gentle trails for beginners to long, challenging trails for the more experienced. You can find a trail to suit your needs and experience level, so don’t worry about that.

The beauty of hiking is, well, the beauty. It gets you out there, into the great outdoors. From easy forest trails to breathtaking mountain ranges, there is something stunning and natural to be found on every trail. The fresh air, combined with beautiful natural scenery, has a feel-good effect that can make hiking seem more like a day out in nature than a walking workout. Despite the challenge of different terrains, you will probably enjoy your time hiking much more than pounding the pavements or paved walkways in parks.

Speaking of terrain, hiking naturally mixes things up by offering a wide variety of terrains in a single walk. There will be level sections, inclines, slopes, solid ground, mud after rain, and even soft, sandy patches. Why is this a bonus for your walk? Each different terrain presents its own unique challenges to your body, working with different muscles. If you’ve ever walked on a soft, sandy beach, you know just how much more of a sweat you can work up and the different muscles used versus walking on level concrete.

Beginner Hiking Tips

If you aren’t a seasoned hiker, you shouldn’t just head out to hit the trails without some planning and preparation. Here are some tips for getting started if you’re a newcomer to the wondrous world of hiking.

Make the Right Trail Choice

Choosing the right trail for your skill level and the right distance for your fitness level is incredibly important to prevent injury and discouragement.

- Research different trails, their lengths, and rated difficulty levels.

- Choose a trail shorter than the distance you can walk on paved or level ground.

- Estimate an average hiking pace of two miles per hour, even if you can walk faster on a paved or level surface.

- Tack on an hour extra to your overall estimated time for every 1,000 feet of elevation gain.

Get Familiar

- After choosing your trail, do your research.

- Consult maps of the area and online resources.

- Determine if the trail is a thoroughfare from one road to another, a loop, or if it dead ends and you’ll have to double back.

- Make notes of where trails intersect to avoid making a wrong turn.

- Determine good rest spots.

Tell Someone

To avoid panicking friends and family and to make search and rescue quicker and easier if required, tell someone where you will be. Include the following in your information:

- The area you are going to.

- The trail you have chosen.

- When you will start.

- What your general itinerary is.

Be sure to leave enough time for wiggle room before they should start worrying, in case of delays such as hiking slower than anticipated or stopping to take in the view.

Tip: A portable emergency tracking device can be used to call for help if you get into trouble while hiking. Don’t rely solely on a tracking device though. Always tell someone where you are going.

What’s the Weather?

- Check the weather a few days before and again a few hours before your hike.

- Decide what to pack and how to dress, based on the forecast.

- Don’t hit the trail if the weather is forecasted to turn foul mid-hike.

Clothing Choice

Aside from picking out the right footwear, your clothing choice will affect your comfort and enjoyment.

- Steer clear of cotton, as it absorbs moisture and can cause chafing.

- Opt for synthetic materials.

- Wear a moisture-wicking base layer to keep sweat away from your body.

- Wear light layers that can be added or stripped off, according to temperature changes.

- Take one more warm layer, which blocks wind, than you think you need.

Footwear

- Use the shoe-buying tips previously provided to find the best hiking boot fit.

- Choose shoes that are water- and mud-resistant. Wet shoes, socks, and feet aren’t fun.

- Choose synthetic or wool socks, no cotton.

Tip: Throw blister dressings into your backpack, just in case.

Ten Must-Have Essentials

Expect the best, but prepare for the worst. Being prepared can be a life-saver and make you feel more confident.

1. Emergency shelter (an emergency tent of some sort; even a garbage bag can do the trick).

2. Extra water.

3. Fire (waterproof matches/lighter).

4. First-aid kit.

5. Light (flashlight/headlamp).

6. Extra clothing (not the additional, wind-resistant, layer mentioned above).

7. Navigation (map and compass).

8. Extra food.

9. Compact repair kit and tools.

10. Sun protection (sunscreen and eye protection).

Light Load

Choose the lightest-weight option for each of the 10 essentials. For example, pack a compact first aid kit and travel-sized sunscreen.

Pace Perfect

Pace yourself so that you don’t empty the tank before you reach the end of your hike. Feeling strong and energetic at the start can fool you into tackling the trail full steam ahead; resist the temptation.

No Trace Left Behind

There is a quote that perfectly sums up the attitude you should cultivate to preserve the world’s natural spaces.

“Take only memories. Leave only footprints.”

CHIEF SEATTLE

OTHER TYPES OF OUTDOOR WALKING

As we’ve said, hiking isn’t the only type of walking you can enjoy outdoors. Here’s a rundown of other types and styles of walking you can try outdoors to make your walking routine more interesting and up your calorie burn.

Brisk Walking

Different people walk briskly at different speeds depending on their fitness level. A rule of thumb is around 100 steps per minute or 3.5 miles per hour. Benefits include a higher heart rate than regular walking and an increased calorie burn.

Stroller Walking

Got young kids? There’s no excuse for you to stay cooped up indoors. New moms and dads can get outdoors, take the kids with them, and enjoy working out as a family. Many strollers will do the job, but there are some specialized strollers available.

Power Walking

The pace of power walking is higher than brisk walking, but just less than a jog. Swing your arms vigorously while power walking for a full-body workout. Aim for 4 to 5.5 miles per hour. Nailing that heel–to–toe technique mentioned earlier and a 90-degree arm swing is the key to success.

Tip: To make power walking more effective, add ankle and wrist weights once you get the hang of it.

Nordic Walking (Pole Walking)

Nordic walking increases the pace and helps with inclines, uneven surfaces, and balance. It offers the walker a full-body workout by using poles to engage the upper body and propel them forward. The pace to walk at is brisk to power walking.

Race Walking

A competitive sport, even an Olympic event, race walking takes walking speed to the extreme. Race walking offers a high-intensity workout and ramps up the calorie burn. It is characterized by:

- One foot always being in contact with the ground.

- Shorter strides.

- Straight-legged walking style with a pronounced side-to-side hip rotation.

Marathon Walking

You’ve heard about marathon running. Now, we’re going to tell you about marathon walking. Distance average 26.2 miles or 42.195 kilometers with a general time limit of six hours. The focus of marathon walkers is maintaining a steady speed to increase endurance. Training usually starts nine months prior to a race and consists of a single long walk per week that gradually increases to cover the full distance as well as the walker’s regular walking workout schedule.

Chi Walking

Chi walking concentrates on walking form to improve posture, relax muscles, increase core strength, and improve cardio fitness. Employing mindfulness helps walkers focus on proper alignment of the body by using Thai Chi principles to not only work the body, but also involve the mind and spirit.

WALKING STYLES EXPLAINED

Some of the walking styles mentioned above need some further explanation to understand and make proper use of.

Stroller Walking

Stroller walking is a great way to combine family time and get your walking workout in at the same time. The added bonus is encouraging little ones to enjoy the outdoors and planting the seed about the importance of a healthy, active lifestyle. This is especially important in our age of modern technology which is causing children to spend less time outdoors and more time being sedentary indoors while glued to their tech toys.

Your Stroller Matters

Many regular strollers might do the trick for a casual stroll. A specialized exercise stroller will make a difference to a dedicated walking parent who wants to make the most of their walk. Advantages include better wheels for improved baby comfort and more handle height adjustments to accommodate handle height for a better stride.

What should you look for in an exercise stroller?

- Easy locking brakes for additional activities such as lunging.

- Quality covers with vents for breathability and protecting your child from sun exposure.

- Various reclining positions to accommodate your little one’s desire to be more active or lie down for a nap.

- Easy manoeuvrability for paths that are not straight.

Posture

An extendable handle will help you to maintain better posture. Stroller walking can lead to poor posture, so you need to mind your posture while doing so.

- Engage your core (abdominal muscles).

- Maintain a neutral wrist position.

- Keep your head up and your shoulders back and down.

- Keep your hips and the stroller close together.

- Try using the stroller in a one-handed grip and alternating your arm swinging to get your upper body moving and ward off stiffness.

Routes

- Hot days require a more shaded path.

- Smooth surfaces are optimal. Hiking trails aren’t a good choice.

- Paths and parks meant for use by multiple users are better than single tracks.

- Safety.

- Always engage the breaks when you take both hands off the handle.

- Take walks in neighborhoods you’re familiar with.

- Avoid busy streets.

- Let someone know where you’re going to be walking and keep your phone handy in case of an emergency.

Additional Stroller Walking Workout

Warm-Up: Walk for five minutes at an easy pace to warm your muscles. Roll your shoulders and perform ankle rotations as detailed previously.

Intervals: Alternate walking as quickly as possible with 30 seconds of slower-paced walking to recover and catch your breath. Repeat five times. You should feel the muscle effort and be breathing hard from the exertion.

Chest Press Single-Arm: Use an incline and your stroller in front of you. Hold onto the handle with one hand, arm bent at the elbow. Push the stroller away from you and pull it back toward you. Perform 12 reps with each arm.

Walking Lunge: Work your glutes, hamstrings, and quads all at once. Take a big step forward with one foot, planting your forward foot firmly on the ground. Bend both knees. Your back knee will move toward the ground. Make sure your forward knee doesn’t move forward past your toes as it bends. Your front knee should bend to approximately 90 degrees or until your thigh is parallel to the ground. Press down through your feet to come fully upright before taking another walking lunge with the other foot. Chest out and back straight through the movement. Perform walking lunges for three minutes.

Power Walk: For five minutes, use full strides to slowly increase intensity. Increase the intensity each minute to reach a challenging pace by the end.

Cool Down: Walk slowly for five minutes to recover, bringing your breathing and heart rate back down.

Reverse Curl: Park your stroller on a soft surface, brakes engaged. Lie on your back in front of the stroller, with your head positioned at the front wheels. Bring your hands over your head, taking hold of the footrest or one wheel. Bend your knees until your legs create a 90-degree angle. Squeeze and contract your core abdominal muscles, tilting your pelvis to bring your legs slightly toward you. Perform three sets of 15 repetitions each.

Crunches: Using the same soft surface, turn around and lie on your back with your feet at the base of the stroller or the footrest. Bend your knees to a 45-degree angle and clasp your hands behind your head. Don’t pull your head forward as you perform a traditional crunch so you come off the ground only up to your shoulders. Perform three sets of 15 repetitions each.

Stretching: You should perform these stretches after your warmup and cool down.

Hamstring Stretch: Place your right foot on the wheel, holding onto the handle with your left hand, brakes engaged. Place your right hand on your right thigh and sit back into the stretch by leaning your upper body forward and pushing your hips back. You should feel the stretch in the back of your left thigh. Repeat with both legs.

Hip Stretch: Perform the hip stretch detailed previously while holding onto the handle with both hands, brakes engaged. Repeat with both legs.

Calf Stretch: Place your hand on the handle, brakes engaged. Put your right toe against the right wheel, leaning your body forward and keeping your heel on the ground. Lean forward and feel the stretch in your calf muscle. Repeat with both legs.

NORDIC WALKING

Nordic walking is easily accessible to walkers and doesn’t require a specific type of terrain and very little equipment not already needed for general walking. It enhances your walking by giving you an increased pace and uses your upper body for a total body workout.

The Gear

- Nordic walking poles are the only additional equipment you need to get started.

- Be sure to purchase the specialized Nordic walking poles, which have necessary accessories such as interchangeable attachments for different terrains and correct hand straps.

- Regular ski poles are not suitable.

- Purchase poles suitable for your walking stride and height. Adjustable and fixed poles are available.

- Pole height should only be long enough to be held vertically while your elbows are bent at a 90-degree angle.

- If purchasing adjustable poles, have them correctly fitted before exiting the store.

- Wrist straps are recommended, but not strictly necessary.

- Wrist straps look like the bottom cuffs of gloves and fit around the thumbs.

- Choose comfortable straps which allow release on the backstroke and return to the right position on the forward stroke.

- Attachable rubber pads for pavement walking should come as part of the purchase, but always make sure to get them.

- Walking on dirt utilizes the metal spike.

- Regular walking shoes are suitable for pavement walking.

- Hiking shoes are used for off road terrain.

- Refer to the walking shoe purchasing guide in the first chapter to purchase shoes.

Nordic Walking Techniques

- Properly strap the poles to your wrists via the straps.

- Begin by walking normally.

- Don’t use the poles, but hold them lightly.

- Natural gait is used for Nordic walking. It’s important to maintain your natural gait and arm swing.

- As you advance, walking faster will naturally lengthen your stride.

- Using a heel-to-toe stepping motion, you will plant the pole opposite to your forward foot onto the ground and propel your body forward with a push. If you step forward with your right foot, plant the pole with your left hand.

- Allow the poles to be pulled along behind you, angled at 45 degrees.

- When the angle is correct, plant the poles into the ground at that angle. You will maintain a 45-degree angle while walking.

- Keep your elbows tucked close to your body, arms relaxed and straight.

- Start applying more pressure with each push to achieve a fuller arm swing as you get comfortable.

- Keep the poles planted and pushing as you take a step with your other foot, keeping your arms in motion.

- Maintain straight hips and head, ensuring that your torso rotates slightly with each step, as it would when walking normally. Your torso should rotate slightly to the left when you step forward with your right foot and vice versa when stepping with the left foot.

- Begin walking short distances, for about 30 minutes, to avoid excessive muscle soreness.

- Extend walking time and distance as your body adjusts.

- Nordic walking uses more muscles than regular walking, increasing calorie burn by up to 46 percent.

Workout Advancement

When you are ready to advance your Nordic walking workout, here’s how to do it:

- Walk at a normal pace during your first walk. Don’t try to speed off into the distance just yet.

- Focus on technique and form to get it right.

- On the second day, extend your walk to 50 minutes, alternating between longer and normal strides every 15 minutes which mimics HIIT.

- Stop if it doesn’t feel comfortable. Decrease intensity if necessary.

- Walk normally for 30 minutes on the third day. Walking without poles now and then helps maintain your natural walking style. It also allows your body some rest from Nordic walking.

- On the fourth day, progress to rolling terrain and extend the walk to 60 minutes. Practice both uphill and downhill walking. Pace yourself.

- Take a 40-minute walk on the fifth day, paying attention to posture.

- Do not walk at all on the sixth day, allowing your body to rest and recover.

- On the seventh day of the week, aim for a 75-minute walk. Make use of trails as much as possible.

- When 75-minute walks are comfortable, you can increase your walk time by 15 minutes per week.

RACE WALKING

Race walking is a very specific, learned technique that is not a natural body movement for walking.

Getting Ready

Always warm up by walking easily and stretching for 5 to 10 minutes.

Race Walking Technique

Correct form is the key to successful race walking and preventing injury. Here’s how to do race walking correctly:

Head Position

- Maintain a relaxed jaw and neck.

- Maintain a level head, with eyes focused about 20 yards ahead.

Arms

- Always maintain a bend at the elbows of 85 to 90 degrees.

- Swing your arms vigorously from the shoulders. Keep your arms loose.

- Hands are held close to the body, brushing hip bones with the heels of your hands.

- Your hands should not come up higher horizontally than the middle of your torso or come across further vertically than the middle.

- At the end of swinging your arm upward, your upper arm should be vertically in line with your torso so that you don’t bring your hands upward.

- When swinging your arms backward, imagine that you are reaching for your hip pockets.

- Do not swing past your range of motion which could result in restriction of breathing and a forward, bent-over posture.

- Clench your fist loosely, thumb on top, but always maintain relaxed hands.

Torso

- Walk up straight and keep your body relaxed.

- Don’t lean forward or push your tush out backward.

- Engage your core muscles, keeping the curvature of your lower back neutral.

- A completely relaxed core could cause what is called sway back.

- Prevent tensing your neck and shoulders by keeping your shoulders relaxed.

Hips

- Rotate the pelvis horizontally back and forth like you would if you were dancing the 60’s Twist.

- You will be twisting using the side abdominal muscles.

- To prevent injury to the muscles on the sides of your hips and glutes, avoid moving your hips overly from side to side.

- To help maintain a proper hip twist, drive the knees forward toward the center of your body.

Legs and Stride

- Keep the knee of the leg moving forward straight, but not locked, as it hits the ground.

- Bend the knee as little as possible when swinging your leg forward.

- Begin by walking slowly. Increase the pace as you go along.

- Maintain your body’s natural stride length as you increase the pace to avoid overstriding. Aim for around 160 steps per minute. You may even progress to between 180 and 200 steps with practice and experience.

- Stride length may initially become shorter as you increase the pace.

Feet

- One foot must always be in contact with the ground. The front foot must touch the ground before lifting the back foot.

- The key to race walking is a short stride. Putting your forward foot down too far ahead of your upper body lengthens the stride, slows your pace, and could result in groin injury and what is known as soft knee. Overstriding can also injure the glutes and hamstrings on inclines.

- Use a heel-to-toe stepping motion, flexing the ankle as your foot strikes the ground and straightening it before lifting it off the ground. Lifting a flexed ankle could cause tendon injury.

- Keep the ankle relaxed as you bring your leg forward to take a step, pointing your toes at the ground until your foot has passed the leg you are standing on. Begin flexing the ankle once past the supporting leg.

- Ease into race walking until the muscles get used to this to prevent tightness, soreness, and burning.

Race Walking Rules and Mistakes

- You will be disqualified if the knee of the leg moving forward is not straight from the moment it touches the ground, through the lift, until it passes the supporting leg.

- Avoid leaning either forward or backward. Maintain a straight body as much as possible. Leaning backward slows you down and makes maintaining a straight leg difficult.

- You will receive a lift violation or might be disqualified if one foot is not in contact with the ground at all times.

- Avoid overstriding, a common mistake in both regular and race walking. Focus on keeping the forward motion of your leading leg shorter, but the backward motion of the leg pushing you forward slightly longer for a powerful push.

- Use powerful arm motions to counteract the leg and hip twist, but don’t cross the midlines of your torso, either horizontally or vertically.

- Elbows should not rock side-to-side, but rather move in a more back-and-forth motion.

Important note: As well as reading these instructions, watch videos, attend a race walking clinic, or get professional coaching. Poor techniques could result in a loss of speed and efficiency as well as injury.

CHI WALKING

Chi walking is a gentle yet effective style of walking that will not only help you melt away the pounds, but also improve posture, muscle strength, and flexibility. Chi walking is a mindful connection between the mind and body while providing you with a good daily dose of walking exercise. Here's how to get started with chi walking:

Alignment

- Align yourself physically and mentally by using mindfulness to ground yourself and bring you into the present.

- Feel your body, noticing your posture.

- Feel the ground under your feet, how your muscles feel, and how the breeze or sunshine feels on your skin. Be fully present in your body and feel every sensation there is to feel.

- Pay attention to your posture, and stand up straight and tall with your feet shoulder-width apart.

- Imagine dots on your ankles, hips, and shoulders, with a straight invisible line running upwards, connecting them together.

- Aligning your body will take the stress off your muscles and allow your bones to support you.

- Imagine drawing your energy to the vertical centerline up your spine while relaxing your arms and legs. All of your movement will come from this strong centerline.

Engage Your Core

- Allow your feet and knees to relax. Feel your knee go soft, but not wobbly.

- Elongate your spine as if you are a puppet with a string attached to the top of your head. Feel that string being pulled gently upward and your spine lengthening.

- Level your pelvis by making sure your weight is evenly distributed between both legs.

- Put one hand on your abdomen, placing your fingers just above your pelvic bone and your thumb at your belly button.

- Engage your pelvic muscles and feel them under your fingers. Feel how activating those muscles pulls your pelvis gently upward, but not too far.

- Imagine a bowl of water inside your pelvis. Level it out so that water doesn’t spill over the front or back.

Create Balance

- Create balance by making sure that you maintain your body weight over your leading foot. Remember that all movement comes from that strong center line.

- Your core muscles should be doing the majority of the work when you move; not your legs and feet pulling you along with them.

- Physical balance helps prevent falls by keeping you centered.

- Make the choice to move forward differently from the way you have always done.

- You are going to lead with your upper body instead of your feet.

- Choose the direction you will move in before you start moving to bring all parts of your body into unison to move together as one.

Move Forward

- Moving forward means more than just taking a step forward. It can be extended to your whole life.

- Moving forward in chi walking means making a deliberate and conscious decision to take a step and to commit to today’s walk as well as your walking plan for the week. You are not just moving, you are moving toward weight loss, health, and happiness.

- Maintain mindfulness of your posture, engaged core, and balance while moving forward.

- Keep your goal in mind.

- Take four steps forward and ensure that your movement is balanced and has both direction and purpose before continuing.

Chi walking is about more than just walking. It is about synchronizing your body and mind. It is about intention and direction, not only on the walking path, but also in life. Remain aware of what is going on around you while you walk, but also maintain mindfulness of your body and mind.

Important note: Chi walking is a great form of moving meditation that requires practice to get your body and mind in the same space. If you are interested in taking up Chi walking, look up some how-to videos for more information and hands-on step-by-step instructions.

MAKE WALKING FUN

Walking is a great way to explore the world and see things you have always overlooked from behind the wheel or in the passenger seat of a car. You also get to experience more of your surroundings more deeply; breathing in the fresh air, feeling the breeze, and hearing the sounds. If that isn’t enough to keep you entertained, try making your walks even more fun or meaningful with a few simple activities.

Photography

Everybody has a smartphone these days and the camera technology you hold in the palm of your hand is perfect for becoming a walking shutterbug. Don’t just plug your earphones in and switch on your tunes; use your phone to maximize your walking experience and make memories. Street and landscape photography is a great way to really see what is going on around you. It will also allow your creativity to go wild. The best part is, you will probably be so busy looking for photo opportunities that you won’t even be aware of just how far you’re actually walking.

Moving Meditation

Meditation is often seen as a stationary or sedentary practice. You sit, you close your eyes, and you meditate. However, you don’t have to confine yourself to seated meditation. Get your body moving and bring stillness to your mind at the same time with walking meditation.

As you walk, direct your focus and attention to your feet. Feel how every part of your foot feels throughout the process of taking each step. Focus on every aspect of the sensations you feel from how your foot feels in your shoe to how it feels as it flexes and moves.

You will probably need to walk a bit slower than usual when you first start. Really get the feel of your feet, as you can speed up later or use moving meditation for a few minutes during or after your walk to help manage stress.

It may feel awkward in the beginning. Our minds aren’t used to being quiet and focused on one thing. We are so used to having dozens of thoughts flit through our heads and loads of distractions intrude that creating a sense of stillness can seem difficult. The key to success is understanding that it’s not about completely clearing your head of all thoughts. What you are doing is teaching yourself that you don’t have to pay attention to every thought that pops into your head. Your mind will stray off to what you’re having for dinner or whether you sent that important email. What you need to do is retrieve your attention and refocus it back onto your feet, calming your mind again. Over time, this will become easier and easier until you reach a meditative state during your walking meditation sessions.

Geocaching

Have you heard about geocaching? If not, get ready to have some fun on your walks. Geocaching has taken the world by storm with millions of geocaches hidden all over the globe. You never know; there might even be some near you right now.

Geocaching is kind of like a high-tech game of treasure hunting. Caches are containers that are hidden in various locations. Using a geocaching app on your mobile phone, you can use the GPS coordinates of these hidden caches to find them. Within each container is usually a logbook or log sheet you can sign or some other way of registering that you found the cache. Can you think of a better way to get your daily steps in than playing a giant hidden treasure game?

WALKING INDOORS

There is nothing like walking outdoors. It is one of the best spaces to walk in. However, there are a variety of reasons why you may not be able to get outside to meet your walking fitness program needs. In the next chapter, we’ll cover the different ways you can fit walking into your time spent indoors and how to make a workout of it when you don’t have a treadmill.

5

INDOOR WALKING: DON’T LET THE WEATHER PUT YOU OFF

Spending time in the great outdoors on your walking for weight loss journey is incredibly beneficial to your overall health and well-being. However, there are times when the weather doesn’t want to play ball, making it difficult for you to get outdoors for your walks. There are also times you are inevitably stuck indoors for extended periods of time, such as while working from home, etc. This may seem like a deterrent to sticking with your regime, but it’s not. Walking outdoors is awesome, but including indoor spaces broadens your scope of walking possibilities so that you get the most out of your walking program.

INDOOR WALKING BENEFITS

Walking indoors offers most of the same benefits as taking walks outdoors. Aside from the advantages of fresh air, vitamin D, and the inherent relaxation that comes from walking outdoors, walking indoors will offer you all the same health and weight loss benefits. However, keeping it indoors does have a few advantages of its own.

Weather is not a factor when you are walking indoors. If it’s hot outside and you have the option of walking indoors, you won’t feel like you’re melting as you pound the pavement. If your area is experiencing inclement weather, you can stay warm and toasty while walking indoors, instead of feeling like a walking human popsicle.

Wear what you want without any considerations. When you take your walks outdoors, you have to give several considerations to your outfit choice.

- Will you need layers for changes in temperature?

- Will the color of your walking clothes absorb more heat in cold weather or reflect heat in hot weather?

- If it’s warmer, will you have to slather on sunscreen to protect your skin from sun exposure?

When walking indoors, you don’t have to worry about any of these things. You can wear whatever you want to wear that makes you feel good while you’re walking.

Walking indoors typically throws fewer challenges your way. Walking outdoors presents you with variables such as insects, exposure to the weather, avoiding both vehicular and pedestrian traffic which could slow or interfere with your walking efforts, and coming across animals. Staying indoors from time to time minimizes those challenges and lets you get on with what’s important; putting all your effort and focus into your exertion, time, and distance.

Walking indoors keeps things consistent. When you walk outdoors, there are many things that could change from day to day, including traffic, weather, and even the route you take. Switching things up is a great way to stave off boredom, but it can make achieving consistent results more difficult.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR WALKING INDOORS

Walking indoors can make achieving your walking for weight loss goals more convenient at times, especially when it comes to bad weather days. However, before you embark on indoor walking sessions, there are a few things to consider.

Safety

Yes, walking indoors can be a safer option than taking a walk outside, but that doesn’t mean it’s an inherently safe practice. There are a few safety precautions to bear in mind when walking indoors:

- Ensure that you know how to properly and safely operate any walking-related fitness equipment you will be using. This includes treadmills, steppers, etc., and how to work their emergency shutdown buttons if needed.

- Ensure that all staircases you plan to use have properly secured hand railings in case you suddenly need the support.

Equipment

Walking indoors technically doesn’t require any equipment at all. That being said, if you do have equipment available to you, you can use as much or as little of it as you want to. If you are thinking of investing in indoor walking equipment, take your available space and budget into account when making a decision.

Tip: Invest in a basic, but high-quality pedometer to help you track your steps indoors if you can’t easily measure the distance. Walking pace can vary, even if you think you are putting the same amount of effort into maintaining speed. So, measuring your walking workout on time alone can be a bit misleading and a pedometer will help take some of that uncertainty out of it.

Accessibility

How accessible is your preferred indoor walking space? You may need to find several indoor walking spaces to accommodate changes in routine and whether that space has opening hours or not. Walking inside your own home offers you 24-hour access, but a shopping mall has set opening hours and your work office building is only available on the days you work. Think about a variety of different options to offer you walking access as often as possible when you need to walk indoors.

OPTIONS FOR WALKING INDOORS

The first thing that comes to mind when thinking of ways to walk indoors is a treadmill. While this is a convenient option, it’s not your only option. You have a variety of indoor walking methods to take advantage of, depending on accessibility.

Treadmill

The most obvious option, a treadmill, is easy to use and offers adjustments such as increasing pace and adding inclines. You can even program it to alternate between different inclines and flats to simulate an outdoor workout with varying terrain. Additional benefits of using a treadmill include safety from traffic, other people, and animals, a lack of obstacles, and you certainly won’t get lost. When you can focus purely on your walking, you can concentrate on developing good walking posture.

The drawback of walking on a treadmill is that you may become bored. There is no change of scenery and it’s generally something you’ll do alone. When it comes to walking on a treadmill, technology is your best friend. You can listen to music, podcasts, audiobooks, follow a live-streamed treadmill workout, or even watch your favorite TV shows.

Buying a treadmill requires certain considerations:

- Quality.

- Available space. If you lack the space for a standard treadmill, a folding treadmill may be an option.

- Adjustments and features to enhance your walking workout.

- Stability.

- The power of the motor.

Walking In a Mall

Yes, mall walking is a thing. It’s a great balance between exercise and being social, plus you get to window shop at the same time. Malls are also a safe space to walk and offer conveniences such as restrooms and access to food and beverages if you need them.

Malls are a good option for slower walks and while you can walk with friends or other mall walkers, obstacles are aplenty. You’ll have to navigate between shoppers, store aisles and displays, benches, etc.

Important note: Malls have hard concrete floors, so opt for a walking shoe with more cushioning to absorb the impact.

Walking in an Airport

Travelling can see you sitting for long hours at a time, especially on long-distance flights. A new development in some airports is the introduction of designated walking paths within the terminal. You can stretch your legs, get your body moving, and get those steps in toward your 10,000-step goal instead of sitting around waiting for your flight.

In the U.S., walker-friendly airports include:

- Cleveland Hopkins International Airport (CLE).

- Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport (DFW).

- Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP).

- Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX).

- Thurgood Marshall Airport (BWI).

Create an Indoor Walking Circuit

You can get creative at school or at work by creating your own walking circuit. Large buildings offer a variety of hallways and even stairs to help you get your steps in and vary the intensity. If you want some company while walking, start a walking group for other walkers to join in. Not only will you be getting your steps in, but you can make new friends and catch up on what’s going on around the school or workplace.

Tip: Whenever possible, take the stairs instead of the elevator at work or school to maximize your daily walking.

Guided Video Walking Workouts

Guided walking workouts are available online and on DVD. You can utilize these workouts without a treadmill and with limited indoor space. These walking workout videos help you tone muscles and burn calories while making use of exercises such as marching in place, knee lifts, kicks, and side steps.

Video walking workouts are freely available online through video websites such as YouTube. When it comes to picking a great workout, two names to look out for are Jessica Smith and Leslie Sansone. These women present workouts that will get you moving and improve balance, strength, flexibility, and coordination all in one workout.

Important note: Video walking workouts are not a substitute for outdoor walking training when preparing for a long walk such as a walking marathon event.

Indoor Walking Tracks

Indoor running and walking tracks are available at some health facilities and gyms. These are safe, indoor spaces dedicated to offering walkers the opportunity to get their steps in away from distractions, obstacles, and inclement weather. These tracks often have lanes set up, so it’s important that you don’t block other walkers or runners and follow the direction and lane rules of the track. The bonus is that you can time yourself effectively, walk in alternating intervals, and increase your pace by trying to catch up to other walkers. However, due to the rules, indoor walking tracks aren’t a good place for walking with a group of friends.

WALKING AT HOME

You don’t have to live in a mansion to add steps to your day. You can make up a big chunk of your daily steps in any size home by switching things up in a few simple ways. This is especially useful if you work from home.

Get a Smartwatch

Even more useful than a pedometer, a smartwatch has more features such as reminders to move when it detects that you’ve been inactive for a set period of time. You don’t have to fork out for the latest and greatest smartwatch. Do some online research and comparisons to find a watch that has the features you need and will make use of.

Reminders are a great way to prompt you to get up and walk, especially if you work from home and get lost in what you are doing. You can also earn digital rewards, which may sound silly at first, but can be useful as motivation to pay attention to your watch when it tells you to get moving.

Note: Read more about smartwatches and activity tracking in Chapter 7.

Cook on the Move

Making your daily step goal doesn’t restrict you to only walking. Have some fun in the kitchen and multitask. If marching in place isn’t your thing, make it more fun by dancing around the kitchen. Every step you take is a step, irrespective of how you take that step. Even if you’re not cooking up a storm, dance, march in place, or pace up and down while you wait for the kettle to boil, food to reheat in the microwave, or the toaster to pop up. Pretty much anything that leaves you waiting around in the kitchen presents an opportunity for movement. Every step counts, even if you’re only moving for a minute or two at a time.

Phone Walking

Working from home has become more popular since 2020 and video calls are often the communication channel of choice, but that doesn’t mean your phone has become a white elephant. Whenever you get a phone call—it can be work-related or something more social—get up and walk around. It doesn’t matter whether the call is less than a minute or 10 minutes long, move for the duration of the call.

Tip: Don’t attempt a serious walk that will leave you breathy when taking more professional calls such as with clients. Keep the maximum effort phone walks for friends or colleagues.

Pacing

While pacing may not seem like much or an ideal way to walk, it will help you rack up your steps. Use a long hallway, large room, or even create your own home circuit from room to room. If you have a dedicated walking time every day, but can’t get out of the house, this is a good option during your usual walk time.

Binge Walking

Binge-watching your favorite TV shows is something everybody has done. The problem is that you usually end up spending hours on the couch and your snack consumption goes through the roof. Swap being a couch potato for marching in place or walking on a treadmill while spending a few hours enjoying your guilty series-binging pleasure. You don’t just have to binge-watch series to get moving in front of the TV. Is there a new movie you just have to watch? Step up the walking action for that hour and a half, or more, to help get to your step goal.

Podcast Pacing

Pacing around your home can become tedious and boring. Don’t let the monotonous scenery put you off making your daily step goal. Listen to a podcast while you pace. Increase the benefit of podcast pacing by tuning into a podcast that offers you a chance at personal development for a physical, mental, and emotional workout all in one.

Tone Down Your Efficiency

Typically, chores are done at high speed to get them out of the way as quickly as possible. Being less efficient while doing household chores can help you increase your steps. Instead of trying to overload yourself carrying too many things from one room to the next—you know you’re guilty of it—carry smaller amounts to increase walking back and forth. This can be extended to carrying groceries in from the car. Carry one bag in at a time instead of trying to heave several bags in at once.

Get Competitive

Friendly competition is a fantastic motivator to put in the extra effort to make as many steps as you can each day. A smartwatch is a perfect tool for connecting with friends and family by sharing your activity with them. Having a competitive nature spurs you on to try to beat your best friends or significant other, especially if there is some form of prize or reward involved.

Trampoline

Jumping up and down on a mini indoor trampoline might not seem like it has anything to do with walking, but it does actually count toward your step goal. Your body gets moving, your heart rate goes up, and your muscles get a workout. It’s also kinder on your joints than running on a treadmill and more efficient.

Tip: Bungee trampolines are quieter and easier on your joints than spring trampolines.

Treadmill Desk

There are specially built standing desks that can accommodate an under-desk treadmill to enable you get more steps as you work. Other options include desk attachments for standard treadmills. It may take some getting used to at first and you won’t be able to put in maximum effort, but a treadmill desk will keep you on the move instead of sitting on your butt for hours on end. You don’t have to walk for the whole workday; alternate between a regular desk and a treadmill desk.

Additional Tips for Walking at Home

- Intentionally place items as far apart as possible. Put the printer on the other side of the room or in a different room entirely. If you have more than one bathroom, go to the one furthest away. Place the cups and coffee maker or kettle on opposite sides of the kitchen.

- Pace when you are trying to think of solutions to problems.

- Read emails on a tablet and pace around while reading them.

- Clear your mind when concentrating becomes more difficult by walking away from work for a few minutes or a set number of steps before coming back and continuing.

CHANGING SPEED, INCLINES, AND RESISTANCE INDOORS

Walking indoors may seem to be limiting. Outdoor spaces offer the options of switching up the terrain, inclines, speeding up, and adding resistance to your walk. How can you enhance your indoor walks in a similar way to get the most benefit out of them?

Changing Speed

Treadmills offer the easiest and most effective option for walking faster indoors, but that isn’t always possible if you don’t have space or budget for a treadmill. If you have limited indoor space, try speeding up by taking shorter strides. If you are in a larger indoor space, such as a mall, try adding intervals to your walk by speeding up in open areas offering a straight line, and then slowing down in crowded spaces with lots of twists and turns.

Adding Inclines

There are no natural hills indoors, so changing your incline is going to take some ingenuity. Again, treadmills are the most obvious option for adding inclines to your walk, but not everybody has access to a treadmill. However, the obvious is not always the only option.

- Use the stairs in malls, at home, or at work instead of the escalator or elevator.

- Raise your knees higher when walking or marching in place.

- Use a stepper machine or a stepping block to simulate using stairs.

Ramp up the Resistance

Ankle, wrist, or hand weights can increase the resistance of your walk. You don’t have to use weights only at home. Don’t be shy about taking hand weights or wearing wrist or ankle weights out and about to the store or mall. Another way of increasing the resistance of your walk is to include some bodyweight exercises, such as walking lunges or shoulder presses with hand weights.

6

MAKE IT A LIFESTYLE: CREATING A HABIT OF WALKING

Walking, just like any other form of exercise, needs to become a habit for your regime to really take hold and stick. Think about other good daily habits you have, like brushing your teeth, for example. These good habits have become so ingrained in your daily life that they are almost automatic. To get the most out of walking, you need to make it a daily habit.

REPETITION CREATES ROUTINE

Any habit is formed through repetition. Repeating an action over and over again at the same time of day creates a routine. When you make walking a habit and part of your routine, it will become easy to stay on track with your walking program.

How Often to Walk

- Walk at least five times per week for weight loss.

- Walk at least three to four times per week for health benefits.

- Avoid skipping your walk for more than two consecutive days at a time.

- Walking training for distance or speed should be done six days per week with one day off. Alternate increased pace or distance days with slower or shorter distance days.

When to Walk

- Taking a walk first thing in the morning helps prevent procrastination, getting too busy or tired, and skipping your walk.

- Walking can be built into your work day by walking during breaks.

- Walking in the afternoon or evening may help you relax and clear your mind.

Build your walking schedule to suit your weight loss, health, and lifestyle needs so that it fits in with your regular routines. Commit to forming a walking habit, but be prepared for setbacks. There may be days when you can’t walk at your scheduled time or at all. It is important to cut yourself some slack and then get right back on the horse the next day.

HABIT-FORMING MOTIVATION

Putting the effort into forming a new habit takes motivation. There are two types of motivation you can draw from when you are trying to create a walking habit; internal and external motivators.

External Motivation

External motivation comes from sources outside of yourself. These motivators often come from seeking acceptance, recognition, social pressure, and avoiding negativity from others. Some examples may be:

- Wanting to look a certain way because it’s more socially acceptable.

- Losing weight to avoid negative comments.

- Entering and placing well in a walking event to impress others.

The problem with external motivation is that it often fails to keep you motivated in the long run. Making others happy doesn’t necessarily make you happy. When your personal happiness is at stake, you are much more likely to form a long-lasting good habit.

Internal Motivation

Internal motivation comes from within yourself. It’s the motivation from things you want to feel and achieve for yourself and not for others. Some examples may be:

- Reaching personal health goals.

- Alleviating health conditions through fitness and weight loss.

- Wanting to feel healthier and fitter.

Internal motivation does the trick every time because it’s something you want for yourself. The trick is finding the internal motivation to get you walking and keep you walking. To discover what your internal motivation is, grab a pen and paper and jot down a list of the reasons you’re starting a walking program. Once you’ve written down all those reasons, divide them into internal and external motivation categories.

Tip: If your internal motivation list is looking a little short, try researching the benefits of walking to give you more reasons to add to your list.

EASE INTO IT

An obstacle that we often put in our own paths when we want to form a new fitness habit is that we try to do too much, too quickly. When you overload yourself and find you can’t meet those initial goals, your motivation takes a serious knock and you risk breaking the cycle of forming a walking habit.

When beginning any fitness routine, start out slowly and build yourself up to bigger, better things. Start out with a goal you think may even be too easy; see how your body responds, and gradually increase the step/distance/speed goal as you go along. Each time you increase any aspect of your walking, allow your body to get used to it for a few days. The first day may feel fine, but after a few consecutive days, you may be rethinking the idea to increase it again too soon because it seemed easy on day one.

BUILDING BLOCKS OF FORMING A HABIT

The author of The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg, laid out the three repetitive components of forming a habit.

Cue: The habit trigger can be anything from a physical setting to a specific time of day. Find what prompts you to get walking.

Routine: Your walking routine consists of the things you do and think before, during, and after walking.

Reward: Your walking reward is the result you get from it. The result of your walking should align with your goals or the reason you’re walking.

Create an action plan using your walking cue, what your walking routine is or will look like, and what the outcomes are or will be, to help make your intention of forming this habit stronger.

BUILDING MOMENTUM

If you are new to walking, you can imagine yourself as a ball lying on the ground at the top of a gentle slope. You’re not going anywhere at the moment and it will take some effort to get moving, but once you’re rolling down that slope, you build momentum and continuing to roll becomes much easier.

- Building momentum doesn’t mean walking every single day. It means putting the effort in to walk on every single day you planned to walk.

- On planned walk days, try to at least start your walk. You can always stop if you really can’t complete the whole walk. Even if you don’t think you can do something, once you start, you are more likely to persevere to the end.

- Concerning breaking through resistance barriers to maintain your momentum, unless you really cannot walk or need a rest day, don’t let a lack of motivation or listlessness talk you into skipping a walk.

- Don’t skip too many consecutive walk days. Motivation can peter out quickly with each passing day without walking.

BE COMPASSIONATE WITH YOURSELF

We are quick to beat ourselves up for not reaching goals or not walking on every planned walking day. Life can sometimes get in the way of our best intentions. Illness, injury, emergencies and various obstacles will come along. Being too hard on yourself when you don’t do as well as you expect, or even fail, increases the risk of giving up completely. Why? Dwelling on what has just happened and beating yourself up over it keeps you stuck in that negative experience instead of looking to the future and what you’re going to do next. Practice self-compassion by:

- Acknowledging and accepting that we all falter and sometimes fail; it’s what makes us human.

- Avoiding harsh self-criticism.

- Not suppressing negative emotions or blowing them out of proportion; acknowledge disappointment, accept it, and let it go.

- Speaking to yourself kindly.

START ENJOYING WALKING

Nobody wants to do anything that isn’t enjoyable. The enjoyment factor of an activity instantly increases the motivation needed to make it stick as a habit. To make your walks more enjoyable:

- Invest in comfortable—even fashionable—walking gear that makes you feel good.

- Switch up your route or take your walks in more enjoyable environments.

- Turn up the tunes, podcasts, or audiobooks.

- Walk with friends or join a walking group.

- Practice mindfulness or do some introspection while walking.

- Reward yourself for achieving your goals.

KEEP EXPECTATIONS IN CHECK

As we’ve said before in our goal-setting section, keep your expectations and goals realistic. If you set your sights too high over the short term, you’re bound to be disappointed and may risk throwing in the towel. Disappointment isn’t good when you’re trying to build a new habit, so check out that goal-setting advice again to keep your expectations in check for forming a walking habit.

MAKE WALKING A NON-WORKOUT HABIT

Do you know about NEAT? Non-exercise activity thermogenesis is a really big name for small things you do every day that burn calories. Everything you do in your life that isn’t planned exercise falls under NEAT. Okay, sleeping, eating, and breathing aren’t NEAT, but everything else is. Walking, when not done as a planned exercise, contributes to your daily NEAT calorie burn.

Make walking a habit to get extra steps in and burn more calories by:

- Taking the stairs.

- Walking to nearby destinations instead of driving.

- Parking further from a building entrance rather than closer.

- Walking and talking to friends or colleagues instead of sitting down. You can even suggest walking meetings instead of sitting around a boardroom table.

- Taking your dates outdoors and walking instead of sitting across a table from each other.

- Using public transport instead of driving; you usually have to do a little walking to get to and from public transport.

Look for ways to incorporate walking into your life that don’t leech time out of an already busy day. You are more likely to make walking a natural habit if it’s part of something you already do and doesn’t eat into your leisure time.

7

TRACKING, MONITORING, AND MEASURING YOUR RESULTS

Undertaking a walking program is a big step toward your health, fitness, and weight loss goals. Tracking your progress is part of staying motivated to keep going. Your motivation will vary from day to day; being able to look back and see how far you’ve come is a great pick-me-up when you’re feeling less than enthusiastic about walking.

WHAT TO TRACK

- Steps taken: 10,000-step goal.

- Distance.

- Time: Work up to 150 minutes of brisk walking per week.

- Speed.

- Calories: Both for walking and your total daily calorie burn.

Many fitness tracking gadgets and apps will help record these figures for you, taking some of the work off your plate, but you still have to keep an eye on the numbers to monitor your progress.

How to Use Walking Data

Recorded data can help you identify patterns to improve and maximize your walking program.

- Is your activity level higher during the week or over weekends?

- Is your performance better when walking alone or with a friend?

- What time of day are you more likely to exercise?

- Are you reaching your daily or weekly goals?

Important note: Adjust or lower your goals if you aren’t reaching them. When you can comfortably reach your target, raise them by smaller amounts to make them more achievable and maintain motivation.

Printable Walking Trackers

Having a printed tracking log for your progress and pinning it in a place where you can see it regularly could help keep you on track.

Important note: You can choose to record your pace or your speed. They may seem like the same thing, but they are not quite the same.

- The pace is the time taken to cover a unit of distance. For example, eight minutes per mile.

- Speed is the distance covered per unit of time. For example, walking at eight minutes per mile gives you a speed of 7.5 miles per hour.

You can record one or the other or both, depending on what your walking goals are. We’ve provided you with space to record both.

Notes about your walk could be anything you want to keep track of or remember. For example, perceived exertion, how you felt, etc.

Weekly Walking Log

Daily Walking Journal

ACTIVITY TRACKERS

Pedometers are out and activity or fitness trackers are in. Unlike pedometers, they count more than just your steps to give you a clearer overall picture of your progress.

Activity trackers differ by make and model, but some of the things many can track may include:

- What type of activity you’re doing.

- The distance you’ve covered.

- Your heart rate.

- Calorie intake and calorie burn.

- Sleep patterns.

- Set alarms.

- Be used as a watch.

Activity tracker design varies greatly between brands and models, but most look like wristwatches and can be worn all the time. Modern activity trackers can be linked to other smart devices such as smartphones, computers, and tablets through apps and websites. These smart gadgets can even help set goals, provide cues to get moving if you’ve been sitting still for a while, and provide personal achievement awards to keep you motivated. Many fitness trackers can be linked to apps like Strava, where you can share your progress with friends, encouraging friendly competition.

Why Invest In an Activity Tracker

You can set short- and long-term goals on your activity tracker through a compatible app. Goals may include steps and activity time per week. By looking at the device, you can instantly see how many steps you have taken at any time in the day. The tracker will track your activity and reflect that data against your set goals. Once you reach a goal, you can set another one. A tracker will also serve as a reminder of what your goals are.

When you first start using an activity tracker, you can use the data to determine your average amount of daily activity to establish a baseline. Your baseline will give you a good idea of what kind of short- and long-term goals to set that are both realistic and achievable.

You can track your activity more accurately. Some activity trackers will record your activity on a weekly or even monthly basis. If your tracker doesn’t have that feature, you can use the printable logs to monitor your progress or an app that records your activity on a weekly, monthly, and even yearly basis.

Making the Right Choice

Choosing the right activity tracker is a personal choice, based on the features you want and your budget.

- Price: Price will be the first and foremost deciding factor. The more features it has, the higher the price.

- Ease of use: More features can mean that they are more complicated to use, but most are relatively easy to use, once the tracker is set up.

- Features: How you intend to use a tracker and what data you want to record may determine the tracker you choose.

- Style: Various makes and models are available, some more fashionable than others. Depending on whether you are going to wear the tracker all the time, you may want one that looks more like a watch to complement various outfits.

- Additional: Whether you want to do water sports and how often you charge the tracker are considerations to take into account.

- Display: Lighting and how many features you want to see at the same time.

- Accuracy: Some trackers are more accurate than others.

How to Buy an Activity Tracker

The quality of the activity data your tracker collects can vary greatly from one brand to the next and one model to the next. Depending on the brand you choose, the algorithms not only collect, but also analyze the data, making the make just as important as the quality of the sensors in them.

Fitbit and Garmin often have higher-quality data collection and analysis than other emerging brands, making them more reliable for a better overall experience. They also offer better apps to track more data, improving motivation.

However, that doesn’t mean you have to have the latest and greatest device. If you are looking for simple data to be recorded, you can opt for an emerging brand that isn’t as pricey. Let’s take a look at a rundown of the fitness tracker brands and models that have been voted the most popular in 2021 by the users, reviews, and testing.

WALKING APPS

Walking apps are another great way to track your walking fitness progress. They can be used in conjunction with other wearables such as fitness bands and watches. Walking apps are available on both Android and iOS smartphones, come in free and paid options, and come with a variety of features ranging from basic walking tracking to social features.

Basic tracking features may include:

- Steps.

- Distance.

- Speed.

- Calories burned.

- Activity level.

- Routes taken.

Social features may include sharing statistics, walking routes, and photos with other walkers.

Best Walking Apps

New apps are coming out all the time. Here’s a rundown of the top picks for 2021.

MapMyWalk

Part of the MapMyFitness group of fitness apps, MapMyWalk has been around for a while and is a firm favorite among fitness walkers.

- The app is available on Android and iOS.

- MapMyWalk is compatible with other wearables and apps such as smartwatches and fitness bands.

- Premium membership unlocks additional features.

- If you want to do more than walk, there are over 600 trackable activities to choose from.

- Walks can be uploaded and saved to be viewed both on the MapMyWalk website and mobile app.

- A map of the area is shown at the start of your walk.

- Walking progress is tracked on the map in real time.

- Route tracking allows exploring without getting lost.

- You can view routes other MapMyWalk users have taken to try out new routes.

- During your walk, statistics are displayed such as distance, time, speed, calories, and elevation.

- Speed is tracked using your phone’s GPS.

- The mile-by-mile splits allow you to analyze your walking performance.

- Audio feedback is offered during your walk, letting you know your speed, distance, calories, etc. at intervals.

Argus by Azumio

The Argus app is an all-in-one fitness lifestyle app that does so much more than just track your walking. It’s jam-packed with features to promote interaction with the app and a holistically healthy lifestyle.

- Argus is available on Android and iOS

- Upgrade to a premium subscription to unlock diet and fitness plans.

- Pedometer allows all-day step counting using your phone’s motion sensor, including an hourly graph, steps, distance, time spent active, and calories.

- Workout statistics include distance, time, and route map.

- After a walking workout, steps, best and average pace, calories, distance, map, graphs, and average cadence can be viewed.

- Routes are tracked using your phone’s GPS.

- The integrated heart rate app reads your heart rate by placing your index finger on the camera lens.

- The food diary includes a barcode scanner.

- Tap to track your water intake.

- There is a built-in sleep timer.

- Argus can be linked to a heart rate monitor band.

Walkmeter Walking and Hiking GPS by Abvio

The Walkmeter app is ideal for fitness walkers. It can help work on your distance and walking speed with features like intervals, splits, zones, etc.

- Walkmeter is available on Android, iOS, and Apple Watch.

- Upgrading to a paid subscription unlocks features such as cadence, steps, coaching, and treadmill.

- Your mobile phone’s GPS is used to track distance.

- Stop and start your walk using Siri voice commands or your earphone remote.

- Walks are mapped out while walking.

- Statistics such as distance, speed, and time can be viewed while walking.

- Voice and audio capabilities provide feedback about your walk statistics. You can also hear replies to your walking workout from Twitter and Facebook as you go along.

- Pit yourself against your previous statistics or the stats of others on the same route.

- Walking workouts can be set up using tempo or repeating intervals.

- Training plans for distance walking are provided, including marathon, half-marathon, 10km, and 5km. You are also able to design your own training plan and sync it to your iPhone calendar.

Virtual Walk

- Virtual Walk is available on Android and iOS.

- Walk your way through renowned walking and hiking routes virtually on your mobile device.

- Use the app indoors or outdoors.

- At distance points, information and photographs about the sights and points of interest along your chosen route are provided.

- Virtual Walk routes include the Pyramids of Giza, Washington DC’s mountains, the Appalachian Trail, the Grand Canyon, and many others.

- A medal is provided once you have completed a route.

Charity Miles

Make your steps count with the Charity Miles app by earning a donation to your charity of choice for every mile completed. Roughly 25 cents is donated for each mile walked or run and 10 cents per mile cycled.

Important note: Earning donations for charity may be subject to be capped periodically.

- The app offers minimal fitness tracking, but can be used at the same time as other apps so you can still track your fitness while walking for charity.

- Come together with friends or other walkers to form teams to raise money.

- Time and miles can be viewed while walking.

- After walking, a post to social media, Twitter or Facebook, is a must for sponsorship acceptance and the donation to be made.

Fitbit App Mobile Tracker

- No Fitbit fitness tracking wearable needed to make use of the Fitbit app.

- It is available on Android, iOS, and Windows mobile phones.

- Pedometer uses your phone’s motion sensor to track all-day steps. Hourly graphs provide a visual representation of your statistics.

- Fun challenges and virtual adventure competitions add a competitive twist for motivation.

- The track exercise function allows you to record distance and speed when walking, running or hiking.

- Your phone’s GPS tracks walking workouts.

- Voice prompts and audio updates are provided during your walk.

- You can view statistics such as time and average speed while walking.

- Swiping the screen shows you a map of your route progress.

- After a walk, you can view your route map, time, distance, speed, mile-by-mile splits, steps, and calories.

Endomondo

If you’re looking for an app that’s going to simulate being your personal trainer, Endomondo is your app.

- Exercise options include walking, fitness walking, hiking, and treadmill walking.

- Types of workouts include basic, route-based, and goal-targeted (time, distance, or calorie burn).

- Create your own route or follow routes others have taken.

- The app is available on Android, iOS, and Apple Watch.

- Users must upgrade the subscription to make use of a step counter.

- A premium subscription unlocks the step counter, heart rate zones, visual representations in graphs, training plans for runners, being able to compete against your own previous statistics, and interval training.

- Endomondo can be connected to other activity monitoring accounts, such as Fitbit.

- Your route map and walking statistics can be viewed while you walk.

- Audio feedback provides you with time, lap time, distance, other statistics, and even a pep talk.

- Outdoor activity tracking uses your phone’s GPS.

- After your walk, you can view your route map, distance, time, average and maximum speed, minimum and maximum altitude, total elevation gain, hydration, calories, and total elevation loss.

- The app can be linked to a heart rate monitor.

- Connect with others using the app.

- Share your workouts on social media.

MotionX GPS

- The app is not available on Android. It is only available on iOS and Apple Watch.

- Outdoor activities are tracked, showing distance, speed, and time.

- Route maps of areas worldwide are available.

- Choose from 14 different types of maps, including road, satellite view, topographic, Bing and Google maps, and NOAA marine charts (experimental).

- Route maps can be stored for offline use, which is handy if you are walking or hiking in an area with bad or no reception.

- Live tracking is displayed on any type of map.

- You can view position, altitude, elevation gain and loss, speed, time, and gradient information.

- Up to 2,500 personal waypoints and 300 tracks can be saved to the app.

- Take geotagged photos during your walk to share on social media.

- You can be your own tour guide with Wikipedia integration.

- An interactive stopwatch and voice coaching are available.

PART II

8

HIGH-QUALITY NUTRITION AND HEALTHY FOODS TO SUPPORT YOUR WALKS

There’s a reason they say that diet and exercise go hand-in-hand when it comes to both health and weight loss. Some people operate under the misconception that they can maintain an unhealthy diet, but if they just add a ton of exercise, the weight will still come off and they will improve their health. This is, in fact, not true at all. For holistic health and effective, sustainable weight loss, exercise only contributes about 15 percent to the effect; the remaining 85 percent is made up by diet.

Proper diet and nutrition aren’t just necessary to help you lose weight and get healthy. What you eat fuels your walking. If you aren’t topping the tank up with quality fuel, your body isn’t going to perform as well. You may even end up falling short of your goals simply because your body isn’t getting what it needs to function properly.

Important note: Good nutrition can help prevent, reverse, or manage a variety of health conditions, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Poor nutrition can have the opposite effect, making health conditions worse or even making you more susceptible to developing them.

CALORIES VERSUS NUTRITION

When the topic of losing weight comes up, your first thought may be severe portion restrictions and carefully counting each and every calorie. The truth is, that’s not how weight loss really works. It may show small yields in the short term, but many people who crash diet end up piling the weight back on once they stop dieting. There are a few reasons why nutrition is king when it comes to healthy weight loss, so get ready to ditch the calorie-counting obsession.

Calorie Deficit Fallacy

The most commonly observed practice for weight loss is to create a calorie deficit. The principle says that, if you consume fewer calories per day than you expend, your body will have to dig into its fat stores to make up the rest of what it needs. The problem with this theory, as modern medical science is starting to suggest, is that it doesn’t necessarily work. Your body is built to survive and when it senses a calorie deficit, it perceives that deficit as famine. Instead of letting you burn your way through those calories fast and furiously, it’s going to do whatever it can to hold on to as much of your body fat for as long as possible.

The result of a calorie deficit may be that your metabolism slows down by as much as 30 percent. Let that sink in. If you need to take in 1,800 calories per day to maintain your weight, reducing that by 500 calories per day should result in a loss of approximately one pound per week. If your metabolism slows down by 30 percent, you would only need 1,260 calories per day. Here’s the math: 1,800 – 500 = 1,300. Effectively, what this would mean is that you would maintain weight instead of losing it.

One of the biggest problems with today’s modern Western diet is that it includes too many empty calories and not enough proper nutrition. Slimming down doesn’t need a drastic calorie slash, but it does need high-quality nutrition. Why? Weight loss starts with the individual cells in your body.

For your body to efficiently burn fat stores, your body’s cells must be in tip-top shape. Without proper nutrition, your cells won’t be as healthy as they could be. Cellular repair will also suffer, resulting in slower repair and regeneration of unhealthy cells. Providing your cells with the proper nutrition increases their fat-burning power. Proper nutrition may also improve your sleep. The more sleep you get and the better the quality of your sleep, the more efficiently your body can repair and regenerate cells.

INSULIN AND WEIGHT GAIN

Insulin is the villain in your weight loss story. To understand how changing your diet can help you lose weight without having to drastically cut your calories, you need to know how insulin works and why it can be such a weight loss enemy.

- The food you eat is broken down during digestion.

- Carbohydrates are broken down into the simplest sugars and absorbed into your bloodstream.

- When your blood sugar level rises, your pancreas releases insulin.

- Insulin removes the sugar from your blood, transporting it to individual cells where it’s used for fuel.

- When your cells have been refueled, excess sugar is turned into glycogen and stored in your muscles as quick-access reserves.

- Once those glycogen stores are full, the leftover sugar is turned into fat and stored.

This process happens every time you eat. Every time your blood sugar spikes, insulin is released. The problem with the typical Western diet is that it’s laden with carbohydrates, causing big blood sugar spikes and lots of excess sugar. Over time, consistently consuming too many carbohydrates renders your insulin less effective, leading to insulin resistance where your body is being constantly flooded with insulin to try to control blood sugar levels. More and more fat is stored and you become constantly hungry because the blood sugar is being removed as quickly as you can replace it. It becomes a vicious cycle. Left unchecked, insulin resistance can lead to diabetes, resulting in constantly high blood sugar levels because insulin stops working for your body.

Reducing Carbs

To counteract the weight-gain effect insulin has on your body, you need to control the number of carbohydrates you eat as well as the quality of those carbs.

- Reduce refined and processed sugars. These sugars are easy to break down quickly, causing blood sugar spikes. They are found in everyday food items you probably didn’t realize contained added sugar. Some of the culprits include corn sweetener, fructose, glucose, high-fructose sweetener, hydrolyzed starch, invert sugar, and sucralose.

- Reduce refined grains such as white flour, white rice, baked goods, etc. Opt for whole-grain bread, cereals, pasta, and other whole-grain foods.

- Eat protein in moderation as a good source of amino acids. Protein helps keep you feeling fuller longer.

- Choose whole, fresh foods or foods that have been minimally processed instead of highly refined and processed foods found in packages, cans, and bottles. Whole foods make you feel fuller quicker, making it harder to overeat. They are also naturally lower in calories, while being denser in nutrition.

PORTION CONTROL

Even foods labeled as healthy can lead to unintentional difficulties in weight loss or even gaining weight if you do not control your portion sizes. Knowing the right portion sizes can help you determine what’s on your plate:

- Calories.

- Carbs.

- Fats.

- Protein.

- Sodium.

When you know what’s on your plate, you can eat with peace of mind, knowing that the amount is just right.

Serving Size and Portion Size

Don’t get serving size and portion size confused.

- Serving size: The amount of a specific type of food normally eaten in a single sitting as determined by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

- Portion size: How much of a particular food you actually eat.

Your dished portion is bigger than a serving size, misleading you into believing you are eating fewer calories than you really are. For example, a heaped tablespoon of peanut butter could contain twice the amount of calories as a properly measured tablespoon.

Correctly calculating portion size based on your personal daily caloric and carb intake needs is a vital tool for achieving weight loss success. You are a unique person; the correct portion for someone else may not be right for you. Your portions should be based on what you need to eat per day to be healthy, keep your body fueled, and not leave you feeling deprived.

Portion Control Tips

- Specifically designed portion control dishes, glasses, and spoons will help you shift away from estimating and toward properly measuring food according to what you actually need to be eating.

- A food scale can help you accurately measure the amount of food you want to eat by weight, whether it’s dry weight or fluid weight.

- Use smaller plates, bowls, and glasses to encourage you to eat smaller portions. A portion appears bigger on a smaller plate while you could be fooled into thinking that it’s smaller than it really is by dishing it up on a larger plate with plenty of open space all around.

- Be wary of condiments and measure them out carefully. Condiments could have hidden sugar and carbs in them so don’t treat them as free additions to your diet.

WATER FOR WEIGHT LOSS

Considering that the majority of your body is made up of water, it stands to reason that water plays a vital role in a variety of bodily functions that influence weight loss. These functions range from how well your muscles perform to the digestion of food. The better your body works, the better your weight loss results will be. So, why wouldn’t you want to make sure that you drink enough water?

Weight Loss Benefits

There are six suggested reasons why drinking enough water could aid you on your weight loss journey.

Water Is Vital For Walking

Walking is a gentle exercise, but it’s still exercising. Every part of your body that is working while walking—lungs, muscles, joints, organs, and connective tissues—rely on water to move and function. If you don’t drink enough water, you could become dehydrated and suffer complications such as fatigue and muscle cramps which could ruin your workout.

Appetite Suppressant

Water serves as a natural appetite suppressant. Have you ever been told to drink a glass of water when you complained about being hungry, despite having eaten only a short while before? There’s logic in that suggestion. Being thirsty can mimic the same feeling as hunger, confusing your brain as to whether you need to eat or drink something. By reaching for a glass of water before you decide to have a snack, you could quench your thirst masquerading as hunger, and prevent yourself from snacking when you’re not really hungry at all.

Drinking water before or during a meal helps to take up space in your stomach. This tricks you into feeling fuller faster and helps you eat less in a single sitting.

Burning Calories

It’s suggested that drinking water that is either cold or room temperature may actually slightly increase the number of calories your body burns for a period after drinking it. Drinking cold water can have an additional calorie-burning effect. Drinking cold water lowers your core temperature, prompting your body to expend more energy to heat itself up again and to warm the water for digestion.

Water Helps Burn Fat

Water is a vital component in the metabolic equation when burning carbs or fat for fuel. Without enough water, you cannot burn your stored fat for fuel. Nor can you properly burn off the energy you just took in from a meal. If you want to burn fat, ditch the other beverages and reach for water instead.

Lowering Liquid Calories

Water is completely calorie-free. It’s natural, it’s healthy, and it can help you stop drinking your calories. It’s easy to overlook the calories in a cup of coffee, a can of soda, or a bottle of energy drink. All too often, we reach for non-water forms of hydration that make the calories stack up and don’t provide us with the proper hydration our bodies are asking for. Filling up on water means you’re less likely to fill up on empty calories.

Waste Elimination

A properly hydrated body can eliminate waste and toxins while a dehydrated body can’t do it as efficiently. If your body can’t flush the toxins out, they hang around and have a negative effect on your body’s cells. Remember what we said about your body needing to function properly and your cells needing to be healthy for optimal weight loss progress? Well, having toxins in your body doesn’t keep your cells healthy which may impede your progress. If that wasn’t bad enough, these same toxins can lead to bloating, making your midsection bigger than it really is.

9

TRACKING AND MONITORING YOUR WEIGHT LOSS

Tracking your weight loss progress can be a big motivator to help you stick to your walking program and keep pushing yourself to meet non-weight loss walking goals. Aside from keeping tabs on your physical weight loss, it is also important to keep track of your daily food intake. It’s not all about calories when your aim is healthy, safe weight loss and overall improved health.

Important note: Losing weight too quickly can be dangerous to your health. A healthy, safe weight loss goal is between one and two pounds per week. It can be tempting to try to shed the weight faster, but slower, healthier weight loss is the key to not only losing weight, but keeping it off in the long term.

TRACK YOUR FOOD

Tracking your food intake doesn’t have to be about weighing food and counting every calorie. There are a few simple tricks that can help you keep an eye on what you eat without focusing on a small part of the bigger picture.

FOOD JOURNALING

Keeping a food journal is an effective way to help you make better food choices. How? It’s simple; you give more thought to what you are choosing to eat when you have to keep a record by writing it down. Keeping a food journal will help you identify your eating habits and patterns so that you can make changes to adopt a healthier diet.

Mobile App Food Journaling

YouAte is a free mobile app, available on Android and iOS, that will help you log what you eat without having to carry a physical journal and pen around. In fact, using this app is so easy that you don’t have to make notes about your meals at all. All you do is take a photograph of your meal and mark it as either “on-path” or “off-path.” That’s it. You also have the power to decide what on- and off-path means to you, personally, instead of trying to rate your food choice by standards that may not be in line with your goals. This nifty app will provide you with feedback on what percentage of your meals were on or off the path at the end of each week.

There are additional features when logging meals that can give you greater insight into your food patterns. Some simple questions can be answered when you log a meal:

- Why did you eat? Answer options include “It was time,” “Cravings,” and “Hungry.”

- Who did you eat with? Answer options include friends, family, social, etc.

- How was it? Explain how the food was; was it good, bad, average, etc.?

- Where did you eat? Answer options include “At a table,” “Car,” “TV,” and even “Work desk,” and more.

- How was it made? Was it home cooked, convenience meal, fast food, etc.?

- How did it make you feel? Did you feel satisfied, guilty, still hungry, etc.?

Traditional Food Journaling

If using an app just isn’t your thing, keep it old-school by journaling your food in a physical journal or on a mobile device in a more traditional way.

Rules to follow when using a food journal:

- Write down absolutely everything, even if you take a bite of a friend’s meal.

- Write it down at the moment, and don’t wait because you might forget.

- Write down specifics; don’t use blanket terms. If you ate fish sticks, note fish sticks and not just fish.

- Estimate how much food you are eating. Estimations can range from physical sizes, such as inches, to measurements like teaspoons and cups. A handy tip is that a portion of cooked meat weighing three ounces is roughly the size of a deck of cards.

When writing down your food intake, remember to include the following:

- How much of it you ate, estimated serving size, or the number of individual items. For example, ½ cup of rice or three cookies.

- What you ate, and the type of food or drink you consumed. Remember to be specific and not to disregard additional toppings, sauces, or additions such as sugar, butter, and mustard.

- The time of day you eat or drink anything.

- Where you eat or drink it. Again, be specific. Don’t just note that you were at home; note the room you were in and if you were sitting at a table or on the sofa, etc.

- Who you ate with, such as alone, with friends, family, coworkers, etc.

- What you were doing when you ate it, such as driving, working, sitting in front of the TV, etc.

- How you felt when you ate it. How you feel can influence when you eat and what you eat.

For example:

A journal entry like this would indicate that you were indulging in unhealthy snack food alone in your car while driving. You were feeling stressed. Now ask yourself, were you eating that out of hunger, or were you stress-eating? A food journal provides insight into your eating patterns in an effective, visible way.

Important note: For a food journal to be successful, you must be 100 percent honest in writing down absolutely everything and a portion estimation that is as close to accurate as possible.

HEALTHY FOOD CHOICE APPS

Shopwell: Free

- Scan grocery store items for information in it.

- Find out the health rating, how to use it, similar alternatives, etc.

- This app is useful for ensuring you stick to a specific diet, such as gluten-free.

Eating Well: Free

- Provides lots of tasty, healthy recipes.

- Recipes are suggested based on the food you want to eat and health/weight loss goals.

- Nutritional value per serving is provided with recipes.

Fooducate: Free

- Educate yourself on the value of quality calories, not quantity.

- Track meals and hunger patterns.

- Get recipe ideas.

- Track sleeping patterns.

Rise: Variable

- Subscription is required for some services offered.

- Team up with a nutritionist.

- Create a personalized diet plan.

- Photograph and share your meals for tips.

- Get support from your coach when you need help.

The Blender Girl: Paid

- Available on iOS.

- Homemade smoothie recipes are provided based on your mood and how you want your smoothie to make you feel.

- Draw up a smoothie grocery list to remember what goes into your smoothies.

Harvest: Paid

The app provides suggestions for fresh, in-season produce and how to use it.

Nom Nom Paleo: Paid

- Get help following the paleo diet with recipes, ingredient shortcuts, and tips.

- Create a paleo-friendly shopping list to avoid confusion in the store.

TRACK YOUR WEIGHT LOSS

You are undertaking a life-changing new walking-for-weight-loss program. It is crucial that you keep track of your weight loss progress. Tracking your weight loss is incredibly motivational. It can help keep you going when you lack motivation, feel like you aren’t making progress, or lose sight of how far you’ve come.

The problem with tracking weight loss is that it’s often done using a traditional bathroom scale and you can become obsessed with and discouraged by the number on the scale. If the scale isn’t playing ball and the number isn’t coming down, you aren’t necessarily hitting a weight loss plateau.

Bathroom scales are also known as bodyweight scales. They measure everything from body fat to muscle and water weight. They don’t discriminate. If the number goes up, it can’t tell you what you’ve gained. If the number goes down, it can’t tell you whether your loss is from fat or something else.

Body Weight Fluctuations

Your body weight will fluctuate all the time, based on a variety of contributing factors. These factors are constantly changing, causing your weight to fluctuate without reflecting that you’ve actually lost or gained body fat.

- Water weight: Depending on how hydrated you are, how much salt you’ve eaten, or whether your hormones are fluctuating can cause your body to hold on to extra water. This water retention is reflected on the scale.

- Muscle weight: Muscle is denser than fat, weighing more. Building muscle through exercise may make the number of the scale go up while your physical size goes down.

- Food weight: The number on the scale will be higher after eating because you’ve added something to your body that will be digested, used for energy, and then eliminated.

Important note: If you know your body fat percentage, using a bodyweight scale gives you a more accurate picture of what is happening to your body. Using a scale alone may not be effective and could ultimately be detrimental to your motivation.

Tracking Body Fat

Think about a bodybuilder. Using a standard height-weight calculation such as body mass index (BMI), his result will tell him that he is overweight, despite having a very low body fat percentage. Muscle is dense and heavy; the more of it you have, the higher the number on the scale. Tracking your body fat percentage can be done in several ways.

- Bioelectrical impedance scales: Scales using a low-level electrical current to determine your lean mass combined with your total body weight, height, age, and gender to estimate body fat percentage.

- Calipers: Skinfold calipers measure how thick the layer of fat under the skin is in several spots on the body to estimate fat percentage.

- Online calculators: Possibly the least accurate and most basic form of estimating body fat percentage.

Consistency Is Key

Whether you are measuring your body fat percentage or your total body weight, remaining consistent is important.

Measure on the same day per week, at the same time of day, using the same device or having the same person measure you. Your weight will fluctuate at different times of the day and your body measurements will go up and down because of things like bloat after eating or drinking. Different scales will vary in their results even at the same time of day. Different people will measure you slightly differently, providing varying results.

Keep track of your measurements in a journal or on a calendar; it’s a great way to hold yourself accountable.

Avoid measuring your progress too often, because change happens gradually and your body fluctuates from one day to the next. Expecting to see weight loss, but only seeing the same number or the numbers going up slightly, can be discouraging.

Tip: Weigh or measure yourself first thing in the morning. That is when you will be at your lowest weight and your body is unaffected by bloat that occurs while food is digesting.

Measuring Your Body

If the scale is discouraging and the body fat percentage is daunting to figure out, track your weight loss progress by measuring your body. Even if building muscle is duping the scale into telling you that you’re not making progress, smaller measurements mean less fat.

Taking measurements in different areas helps you determine where you store most of your body fat and assures you that you are losing fat even if it’s not happening as quickly in the areas you want to target.

Measuring your body naked is ideal, as there is no fabric to get in the way of accurate measurements. If you are clothed, make sure your clothing is skin-tight for the least amount of interference.

- Bust: Measure around your chest in line with your nipples.

- Calves: Measure around the biggest part of each calf.

- Chest: Measure around your chest, just under your bust or pectoral muscles.

- Forearm: Measure around the biggest part of your forearm below the elbow.

- Hips: Measure around the widest part of your hips.

- Thighs: Measure around the biggest section of each thigh.

- Upper arm: Measure around the biggest part of each upper arm above the elbow.

- Waist: Measure ½-inch above your belly button or around the smallest part of your waist.

Clothing and Photographs

You can judge your progress by feeling how your clothes fit. Choose an outfit that is tight-fitting. Put it on once a month to feel the difference as the clothes become looser with weight loss.

Try taking photographs of yourself in something fitted, such as underwear or a swimsuit. Try to take photographs from a few angles, such as front, back, and from the side. Repeat this process once a month to notice changes you may not be seeing because your eyes adjust as you lose weight. You may be surprised at the change; you could be so focused on your problem areas that you don’t see changes elsewhere.

Weight Loss and Fitness Progress Chart

Below is a chart to help you keep track of your weight loss and fitness gains. If you don’t know your body fat percentage, you can leave that one out.

Important note: Your resting heart rate (RHR) is a good reflection of increasing your fitness. The fitter you get, the lower your resting heart rate should be. Measure the number of beats per minute first thing in the morning or after at least four hours of resting after vigorous activity and several hours after eating:

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CONCLUSION

Walking is the way to a healthier, happier life. It’s simple, it’s accessible, and it works. Overlooking walking as a fantastic form of exercise to help you lose weight is a mistake that many people make, but not you—not anymore. You’ve made your way through our book and we’ve told you everything you need to know about walking to turn it into a lifestyle that will transform your health and fitness.

We’ve provided you with compelling information about the numerous health benefits you can take advantage of by simply getting up and walking. We’ve shared with you the knowledge of the various different types of walking, how to prepare, and how to get started. We’ve sold you on the practicality of walking, why it’s effective, and why anybody can do it.

We have also provided you with a comprehensive seven-week beginner walking program to get you started and we’ve told you how to customize it to fit your personal needs and goals. We’ve even mentioned the importance of diet in weight loss and health, providing you with tips on how to improve your eating habits to help you reach your weight loss goals.

Walking is not just medicine; it’s food for your body, mind, and spirit. It gives you a new lease on life as well as a new perspective on the world. The best part is that it is so simple that you could start right this minute.

So, the only question that remains is this: Now you have all the tools and resources you need, what are you waiting for?

Please leave a review on Amazon if you enjoyed the book.

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