Walking is not only a great exercise for maintaining health its also one of the best exercises to help control weight. Many people trying to lose weight often perform an exercise they believe burns more calories and wonder why after a few weeks they hardly see any results. Permanent fat loss will take time, even though calories do count its not just about burning as many calories as possible, especially during the beginning stages of weight loss.
To lose fat weight its vital to start off with an exercise that will help burn fat directly, one which also helps to slowly develop fitness levels so that higher calorie burning exercises may be performed later on in the program in order to speed up weight loss. Walking is probably the best exercise to start losing permanent weight.
Even though a walk won’t burn lots of calories just look at the positive benefits of walking:
Higher percentage of body fat burned
Increase health & fitness
Boost energy levels
Decrease in health risks
Also remember walking is:
Easy to participate
Fun with friends
No equipment needed
Losing weight on a walking program may be a sensible start!
Many overweight or sedentary people tend to have a decreased fitness level. This is often because a lack of exercising over time allowed the muscles and energy system to lose efficiency. For this reason many exercises are simply too intense when starting a weight loss exercise program. Running and jogging are great exercises for burning calories however, for unfit person they are often too energy demanding. Exercises that are too intense cause the body to burn more carbohydrates.
Burning fat requires the body to exercise at lower levels of exertion and many other exercises don’t allow this fact. Look at Jogging, to continue burning those calories and keep up the pace with a training partner many beginners may try to push past present limits in order to feel that they have done a proper workout. However, if the heart rate is too high it’s impossible to burn a large percentage of fat. Learn more about fat burning here!
Walking also enables us to workout at a steady and consistent pace, another requirement that allows us to burn fat effectively. Many other activities like tennis, soccer, hockey or baseball often require great bursts of energy for a short while in-between regular periods with an easy pace. This type of exercising allows the body to “switch gear” back to utilizing carbohydrates as fuel. To burn fat we need the body to be permanently in fat-burning mode during the whole exercise, walking is a constant and gradual activity so it achieves fat-burning mode very effectively even if the person lacks some fitness.
The great thing about walking to lose weight is that it can be made fun. The pet dog can be taken to the local park so he can enjoy the walk too. Friends can join in the walk where you can chat and catch up on the latest chat. Walking can also be achieved when shopping, a good stroll around shops for a few hours can still help burn off some fat stores. In this case though it would be a good idea to keep continuous movements in order to support fat burning mode, window-shopping may be good for this!