Posts Tagged ‘Walking’
Lose Weight With 15 Minute Walks
The best way to change your behavior is by making small changes in your life.
If you’re a smoker, quitting cold turkey is very hard. It’s much easier to make small changes, like cutting back how many cigarettes you smoke, than it is to stop smoking entirely.
If you’re finding it difficult to find the time to exercise, try walking for 15 minutes a day. Nothing fancy or strenuous, just take a stroll around the office or the neighborhood, and add 15 minutes of extra exercise into your day. Walking and running burn the same number of calories, so you’re burning as many calories as a 15 minute jog (the difference is in the cardiovascular benefits, running strengthens your heart, lungs, etc.).
If a 15 minute walk isn’t in the cards, do something even simpler. Skip the elevator and use the stairs!
Subscribe to the comments for this postRunning & Walking Burns Equal Calories
Did you know that you burn the same number of calories when you run a mile versus when you walk a mile? They’re not identical but they’re pretty close. Surprising right?
Well, before you get too excited, know this: running is a lot better for you. Why? It’s better because it works out your muscles harder, including your heart. When you work your muscles, they get stronger. When you work your heart, it gets stronger.
So, even though a leisurely walk will burn as many calories as a run, a run is much better for your heart. However, the best counter against this is to walk briskly! As long as you get your heart rate up, your heart is working harder and you gain some health benefits because of it.
After Dinner Strolls
When I was younger, my parents would always take me along on their post-dinner strolls around the neighborhood. We would finish up dinner, clean up the dishes, and then take a walk that probably amounted to about a mile. We’d walk and chat and basically spend time as a family as we saw our little suburban neighborhood. It also was good exercise because it got our blood flowing after a meal, rather than sitting on our butts in front of the TV or something (I couldn’t watch TV after dinner so it wasn’t a big deal), and something my wife and I started doing.
Luckily for us, we actually have a more picturesque and longer walk than my parents. It’s about three miles round trip for us to walk around the lake and back, something we can usually do in about an hour, and something we try to do at least once a week. Another side benefit is that the grocery store is along the way so we often stop by there to grab a couple things we needed (saves on gas!).
