Walking for Weight Loss

Walking is a wonderful way to take off that weight we all want to get rid of.  But it does take time, and who wants to wait?  Here are some great ways to make walking burn calories faster.

Strengthen those muscles.  Doing weight bearing exercise in addition to walking burns through almost twice the fat just walking does.  Add some squats or lunges to put the extra pressure on the thighs, hips and butt, you don’t even have to use weights, just use your own body.  You can do this while you walk, or any time you have the chance.  Make sure you don’t do it more than every other day, this gives the muscles time to recover, and get ready to burn more fat.

While you walk, add some extra bursts.  If you put on some extra speed for a few seconds, you can burn fat even faster.  High intensity intervals during exercise burns more than twice the fat.  Just put on some speed for a few seconds (or longer) then walk normally until you get your breath back, then do it again.  This will really kick up your metabolism and help you burn calories, even when not walking.

Walking and losing weight can help in all sorts of ways.  You will lower your risk of breast cancer, stroke, depression, colon cancer, diabetes, heart attack, it can even help with the symptoms of PMS and menopause.  Exercise boosts your body’s natural defenses.

Make sure you are eating enough.  You need at least 1200 calories a day to keep your body working properly.  Having too much will make you gain weight, but having too little will do the same.  No, I’m not kidding, eating too little will make you gain weight.  Your body expects a certain number of calories each day to maintain itself.  If it gets too much, it stores it because it doesn’t know what else to do with it.  If it gets too little, it stores it because it thinks it needs to save it for emergencies.  Your body doesn’t understand that we can just run to the store and get food.  It thinks we are going into a famine, and won’t be able to get food for a while, so it stores the fat away until we need it.

Drinking plenty of water is a great weight loss tip, too.  I know, it seems if you drink more water, you will weigh more, and retain more water.  Believe it or not, drinking more water keeps you from retaining water.  Just like the food, if your body doesn’t think it is going to get enough, it will horde it for emergencies.  Water also flushes the impurities out of your system so your body doesn’t decide to store them since it doesn’t know what else to do with them.

Build up those muscles, add some intensity, eat plenty of food, and drink plenty of water and you will be well on your way to losing all the extra weight on your body.

Tagged with: burn twice the fat • walking

Filed under: Dieting Information

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