Walking for Fitness

Ask yourself this question, ‘Why do you want to get fit?’ There are so many advantages to improving your overall fitness it’s hard to think why anyone would not want to do it. When we refer to ‘fitness’ in general everyday terms we are normally talking about aerobic fitness, the fitness of our heart and lungs. Our heart is a muscle and like any other muscle it will get stronger the more we exercise it. Our lungs will become more efficient by increasing the functional capacity.

If you are looking to start fitness then walking is a great way to get started.
Lets look at some facts & health benefits of walking for fitness.

· Walking at a brisk pace of 2 to 4 mph can burn between on average 200 to 400 calories per hour
· Walking is aerobic so it will exercise your heart
· Walking can be done almost anywhere and requires no specialist equipment in most circumstances
· Reduces the risk of serious diseases such as coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, depression and high cholesterol
· Reduction in body fat due to an increase in metabolic rate
· Enhanced sense of well-being
· Helps improve balance and co-ordination
· Helps to strengthen leg muscles and core abdominals for better posture

One of the best things about walking is that it is easy to fit around your current lifestyle without making any drastic changes. If you just allow yourself at little bit extra time each day you will be able to fit your walk in to your daily routine.

· Go for a 30 minute walk in your lunch break
· Park the car or get off the bus at 20 to 30 minute walking distance from your place of work
· Walk to the shops instead of driving
· Go out for walks at the weekend to local beauty spots and enjoy the fresh air

If you are going to start walking to improve your fitness, then it’s important to do it at an intensity that will benefit you. You need to walk at brisk pace so that increases your heart rate and breathing rate sufficiently for them to be getting exercise. If you are breathing harder than normal, you are getting slightly hot and sweaty, but you can hold a normal conversation in reasonable comfort then you are walking at the right intensity. This should be around 60% of your maximum heart rate, otherwise known as the ‘fat burning zone.’
To be getting any real fitness benefits from your walking then you should be walking at least once a day for ideally 30 to 45 minutes. To progress your fitness, try walking at different speeds. Increase the time and or the distance that you walk. Also, try walking on different terrains, such as hills and surfaces like the beach for example. You could also try interval training, by increasing and decreasing your pace throughout your walk. This will vary your heart and breathing rates adding an extra variable to your training. This also helps to reduce boredom. Adding these variables will help to increase your overall fitness by preventing your body adapting to the same routine. This keeps your body guessing and that’s the key to increasing fitness.
As with any physical activity, it’s highly important that you prepare correctly. Always warm up before you significantly increase the pace. You can warm up by walking at a gentle pace for the first 5 minutes and then perform some light stretching. The stretching might not be convenient on your walk to and from work or to the local shops, but the 5-minute warm up most definitely is. It’s also advisable to incorporate a 5-minute cool down at the end of the walk. This could be achieved by decreasing the pace during the last 5 minutes. Stretching thoroughly afterwards is very important to help maintain flexibility and prevent injury.
When going out for a long walk take into consideration your route, wear suitable clothing and footwear. Make sure you know where you are going and how long it’s going to take you. If you are going off road into the wilderness, take the necessary survival equipment, a map, food, drink and mobile phone and let someone know where you are going. Common sense really! Always take some water or a drink with you incase of de-hydration especially in hot weather. If you are going in rough terrain, such as the mountains, then it’s highly advisable to get some sturdy footwear like walking boots and correct all-weather clothing.
Whilst keeping fit is important, it’s also important to do something you enjoy doing. If you don’t enjoy walking then find something else you do like. The principles of getting fitter and keeping fit are the same no matter what activity you do. To keep yourself motivated follow this simple advice;
· Do something you enjoy
· Set yourself a goal so you know where you are heading
· Get a training partner
· Monitor your progress
· Join a club or group
· Set yourself a routine and stick with it
· Reward your success
· One you reached one goal, set another
· Variety is the spice of life, try something different
So now you have all you need to get started. Make a plan and just do it. Good luck.
The idea for this article was derived from ‘Tips on Walking’ at http://www.netfit.co.uk/walking-web.htm

Do we get enough exercise from our daily activities?

I was scanning the Internet the other day and I came across this really interesting article on a US health & fitness club site. 24 Hour Fitness is a large chain of health and fitness clubs that spread right across the US. If you are interested to have a look at other articles they have on the site you can visit them at
http://www.24hourfitness.com/FitnessArticles.do
What really interested me about the article is that it captures the state of the western world today and the fact that time saving devices are causing us to do little or no exercise in our daily routines. The situation is now the same in the UK as it is the US. Most of the population does little vigorous exercise at work or even during leisure time. Where as 30 or even 20 years ago, more people were doing physical jobs, fewer people had cars and there were less labour saving devices available, which meant that we had no option but to do more physical activity. Even our leisure time today is often spent in a sedentary way. People have more choice on the TV. Kids are playing football on a game console rather than kicking a ball around in the street.

Our overall fitness and health can be improved by including some low to moderate intensity activities into our lives on a daily basis. Everyday simple activities can have both short and long-term health benefits. Walking to the shops, mowing the lawn, climbing the stairs instead of taking the elevator. Also, household chores, such as cleaning, ironing and vacuuming etc. All these activities help to raise your heart and breathing rate improving your heart and lung fitness.

However, you can achieve a greater level of aerobic fitness by introducing regular vigorous exercise activities like swimming, circuit training, brisk walking, running or cycling. Performed 3 to 4 times a week for a minimum of 30 minutes each session at a high enough intensity will make a considerable difference to your aerobic fitness. Doing activities like these on a regular basis will help to reduce the risk of serious illnesses such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and many others.

A statement in the article I particularly like is, “You don’t have to train like a marathon runner to become more physically fit! Any activity that gets you moving around, even if it’s just for a few minutes each day is better than none at all. The trick is to at least get started. Start by taking a 10 to 15 minute walk during your lunch break.”

This is so true. A lot of people today have a poor vision of exercise from PE lessons at high school. They think you have to train like Rocky to see any results. Exercise doesn’t have to be hard. It’s as hard as you make it and you have the ability to be the best you can be. It’s important to push yourself a little so you make the necessary progress. But let’s face it, if you do nothing at the moment that 15-minute walk at lunch is going to do you the world of good.

There are so many benefits to regular exercise. You will feel and look better. Exercise helps you to relax and cope with stress. It improves your self-image and helps you to make new friends. Exercise also helps weight loss by increasing your metabolism, so you burn more calories at rest. It builds and tones muscle, which improves, posture and will help you to cope better with day-to-day activities.

Did you know that you have to burn 3,500 calories to lose 1lb of body fat? Before you can seriously start to lose weight you have to know how many calories you burn in an average day, this is called your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) and this is the amount of calories your body will use just to function normally. A good BMR calculator can be found at http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/. It doesn’t take into account any additional daily physical activity. A rough guide would be adding on another 25% of your BMR to get an idea of your daily caloric needs. For example, if your BMR is 1800 calories per day, then your approximate daily calorie needs would be around 2250. This is a very rough guide. It will vary by the amount of physical activity that you do. Some people will need more or less calories than others.
Each type of physical activity burns a number of calories. So for example, if you carry on eating the same number of calories per day, but add a brisk 30-minute walk everyday, by the end of the year potentially you could lose around 16lbs in weight. The more vigorous the activity the more calories you burn. But increasing the duration is often more efficient than increasing the intensity.
Combine an increase in activity with a healthy balanced reduction in calorie intake and you can achieve the results much sooner.

Take this into consideration; Consider the benefits of a well-conditioned heart: In 1 minute with 45 to 50 beats, the heart of a well-conditioned person pumps the same amount of blood as an inactive person's heart pumps in 70 to 75 beats. Compared to the well-conditioned heart, the average heart pumps up to 36,000 more times per day, 13 million more times per year.

Isn’t it worth getting fit?

If you want to read the full article on line click on the link below,
http://www.24hourfitness.com/FitnessArticles.do

15 Things You Can Do To Improve Your Fitness

This is just a few things that you could be doing if you want to start on a fitness campaign. Not all of them apply to everyone, but read through them and see if you can apply some of these strategies to your campaign.

1. Give up smoking

I’m not going into the reasons why you should give up smoking; my aim is help you to do so. Make a plan, stick to a day when you decide to stop, remove all temptations, and don’t smoke socially. Keep yourself busy and make full use of all the free help, support and advice that is now available from the NHS. This is best thing you can do to kick-start your fitness campaign and even if this were the only thing you succeed in doing then you would have made a significant contribution to your health.

2. Cut down on alcohol

Whilst alcohol can have some health benefits if consumed in moderation anything over the Governments recommended daily allowance of 3-4 units for men and 2-3 units for women would outweigh the benefits. If you are going to drink, make sure you are sensible and stick within the guidelines. Binge drinking is extremely damaging to health and should be avoided.

3. Reduce your salt intake

High levels of salt are a major contributor to high blood pressure. Reduce your intake by not adding salt at the table, cut down on processed food with hidden salt. Try replacing salt with fresh herbs in your home cooking.

4. Reduce sugar intake

Like salt, too much refined sugar is detrimental to your health. Increased sugar intake is linked to Type II Diabetes, where your body becomes insulin resistant.
Reduce sugar in the same way you would with salt. Cut down on processed food with hidden sugar and don’t add sugar unnecessarily, for example to already sweetened cereal etc.

5. Cut out trans fats, completely!

Trans fats or hydrogenated fats are extremely bad for you. They are produced by subjecting vegetable oil to high temperature and pressure during processing and then adding hydrogen. This alters the molecular structure of the oil making it more viscose. Some experts have commented that the molecular structure of a trans fat closer resembles a plastic than a fat. Too many trans fats promote the increase of LDL (bad) cholesterol and a decrease in HDL (good) cholesterol. Trans fats are found in many processed foods such as, margarines, cakes, crackers, biscuits, take aways and preprepared food. Make sure you read the labels and avoid any foods with Trans fats like the plague.

6. Participate in Aerobic exercise

Also know as CV (Cardiovascular) because it exercises your cardiac (heart) and respiratory (lungs) systems. Aerobic activity can be defined as an activity that improves the body’s ability to transport and utilize oxygen. It increases the efficiency of your heart and lungs and is associated with endurance activities such as distance running, cycling, walking etc. During aerobic activity your heart would be working around 60 to 90% of its maximum.

7. Keep a food diary

Keeping a food diary for at least 7 days will help you to see exactly what and when you are eating. It’s absolutely necessary when embarking on a healthy eating or fat reduction plan. You have to be very honest and record every mouthful. At the end of the 7 days, go through it and see where you could improve. It’s also a good idea to record your mood and energy levels 2 hours after eating. You will be very surprised at what you discover.

8. Set a realistic goal

Having a goal to aim for is vital when starting a fitness campaign. Not having a goal is like setting out on a journey without knowing where you are going. Decide on your goal and then plan your sub-goals. This will be your ‘road map’ to your final destination. Every successful person has a goal to aim for.

9. Stretch your muscles

Stretching keeps you flexible and helps keep the best possible range of movement in your joints. It’s very important to stretch before and after exercise as it helps to prevent injury. It’s especially important to stretch because as we get older we begin to lose flexibility in our muscles, which contributes to poor posture and decreased mobility in old age.

10. Do some resistance training

We talked about aerobic training to exercise your heart and lungs. Resistance (weight) training helps to preserve muscle. Resistance training can be used to increase strength, muscle size or muscle endurance depending upon how it’s applied. Most people will benefit from training for muscular endurance as this is more suited to everyday activities. Training for endurance will help preserve muscle, tone muscle and help to provide support to your skeleton, therefore improving posture and joint stability.

11. Train your core muscles.

Having a strong core (mid-section) is important for good posture. Your core abdominal muscles are working hard throughout the day to keep you upright, so having a strong core will help to support your back muscles and is vital for everyday general activities.

12. Drink more water

You should be drinking at least 2 liters of water everyday. Often people are dehydrated and they don’t even know it. De-hydration can also be mistaken for hunger. Water is vital for normal body functions. Your vital organs rely on water to function correctly. Not having enough can damage them. If you are feeling hungry, drink a glass of water and wait 10 minutes rather than eating the first thing within reach. If you are still hungry after 10 minuets then eat something.

13. Eat little and often

Believe it or not most people probably don’t eat enough. It’s what you eat and when you eat that can contribute to weight problems, not necessarily how much you eat. Healthy eating with regular exercise is the key to weight control. Eating little and often keeps your blood sugar levels stable throughout the day, raises your metabolism so you burn more calories and prevents you from being hungry, so you are not so tempted to snack on junk food. Remember these few simple rules; always eat breakfast. Eat fresh whole foods. Eat something every 2 to 3 hours. Don’t go to bed on a full stomach, have your last meal at least 2 hours before going to bed.

14. Have enough sleep

Your body does all its repair work during the night when you are sleeping. So if you have been working hard in the gym, then this is the time when your body is recovering and regenerating itself. So have at least 8 hours sleep a night and try to keep your sleep patterns as regular as possible. Also, sleep leaves you feeling refreshed and motivated so you don’t skip your exercise sessions because you are too tired.

15. Get motivated

Keeping up with exercise or healthy eating is hard. Get one thing straight in your mind, what is motivating you to be doing this? When you feel like you can’t be bothered, think about why you need to eat healthily or get your exercise done. Join a class where you can meet other like minded people or start your fitness campaign with a friend. Once you get into a routine it becomes much easier. So get to know your motivators and your de-motivators. Avoid the de-motivators at all costs.