Nutrition and Weight Loss Ideas

Obviously, one of the primary factors in anyone’s wellness, health and fitness program is getting our weight where it belongs. If you’re looking at any TV at all, you’re being bombarded with a hundred-and-one different ways to lose weight.

There are ads for different diet programs.

There are ads for all kinds of magic pills.

There are ads for a wide variety of different contraptions to give you great abs — or burn more calories in 20 minutes than you could burn on another contraption in an hour. (Some of those contraptions might actually work, by the way.)

The point I’m trying to make here is that all these ads have a tendency to just confuse us, right? We don’t know what advice to follow.

Yesterday we discussed one great way to help get rid of some unwanted pounds — and you don’t need to buy anything — all you need is your own two feet with some good shoes on them and a place to —- WALK!

Most anywhere you look; in books, on the internet, in magazines and other articles about weight loss, you’ll see that body weight is usually measured as 1 pound = 3500 calories. To look at that in reverse, if you want to lose one pound of weight you have to burn about 3500 calories of energy.

Everyone burns a certain amount of calories through normal everyday living. The amount burned during your sleep or while you’re sitting watching TV is minor, and generally won’t result in weight loss unless you have gone on a food strike. (Don’t do that, folks! It’s very unhealthy, and that’s not what we’re about here. When you try to starve to lose weight, you will not only make yourself ill, your body will crave more food than normal and you’ll end up gaining weight. That’s a huge no-no!)

If you want to burn calories, you have to do some exercise — you have to make your body work harder. One good way to do that is to walk. It’s one of the healthiest forms of exercise.

Walking burns up oxygen, which in turn, causes your body to burn off stored fat. According to the research I’ve done, if you walk for one mile at a moderate speed, you’ll burn 100 calories.

Yes, I can hear you saying, “What’s the big deal about that — only 100 calories?”

Stop for a minute and think about this — during the course of a normal day most people will walk about 3 miles. Now, toss in another couple of miles with a brisk evening walk — or head over to the mall in the morning and do a couple of laps — and you could be up to 5 or 6 miles for the day. But, to make the math easier, let’s say you walk at least 4 miles 4 times a week. You will burn off 1600 calories and that’s a half pound of fat that’s gone. (Most people will do more than that.) As long as you don’t eat more calories than you can use, you’re bound to lose some weight.

While you’re walking around burning fat, you’ll also be strengthening your muscles — and when your muscle mass increases, your metabolism increases also. The benefit to that is — your metabolism will also be burning off some of that fat even when you’re not moving.

Remember these pointers about walking:

* Warm up slowly. Walk the first few minutes at an easy pace to get your body prepared for the walk. If you start out at too fast a pace, you risk burning only the immediate sugar supply in your body rather than the stored fat you want to lose. And don’t forget to cool down gradually too — and be sure to stretch both before and after your walk.
* It’s not about speed — focus on the distance instead. It’s better to walk at a steady, even pace than to walk too quickly and have to quit too soon. When your body starts to trim up and get stronger, you’ll find that you’ll increase your speed naturally.
* One thing that will help to build your muscles is to walk uphill. YOu can do that with the incline control on a treadmill — walk up and down stairs — or go for a hike where it’s hilly.

Make walking a part of your wellness, health and fitness program. Do that extra walking most days of the week — in fact — if it’s weight loss you’re after, shoot for 6 out of 7 days a week. Add a good diet to this and you will win your battle against weight.

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Good luck — have a great walk — and I’ll be back on Monday.

Shanti,

Ron
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