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Why Walking is Good for You

The Top 100 Weight Loss Tips series continues unabated as we count down with article number 84 in the series. Here we have yet another great top tip on how you can lose weight naturally, easily and safely.

This post looks at one of the simplest exercises there is for maintaining fitness, health and of course for helping you to lose weight.

That simple to do exercise is walking and so we look at walking for weight loss and why this is something that is so easy, everyone should be doing more of it!

Why Walking is Good for You It may come as no great surprise to learn that you do burn calories while you are walking. When you reason it out, that means that the longer you walk for, the more calories you are going to burn off.

You can take it one step further and then notice that the more strenuous the walk, for instance up and down hills or steep inclines and the rougher the terrain, the more calories you will burn off.

OK, not everyone has a mountain in their back yard to go tramping up and down every day. But even if you live somewhere fairly flat, a good hour long walk every day will burn off a surprising amount of calories to help you fulfill your weight loss exercise quota as long as you walk at a decent pace and don't merely saunter along.

How Far Do You Go?

One great way to gauge how far you are walking or how many steps you are taking is to get yourself a good quality pedometer. This will also allow you to keep track of how much walking you're doing in a day including while you are at work or just walking around the shops.

A determined march through a large shopping mall is a way of getting your walking miles done if you aren't the type to simply want to walk around the streets. It's also a good alternative if you live in a neighborhood where walking through the streets might not be all that safe.

Why does walking do you so much good?

For starters it gets you out into the fresh air and away from energy sapping pursuits like logging the long hours in front of the TV or computer games console. When you walk at a brisk pace, you use muscles in your legs, lower back and torso, which benefit from the exercise and will reward you for doing it daily by toning up flabby upper thighs, buttocks and can even help to reduce a flabby tummy.

Stride With Purpose

You have to be a little purposeful, is all. When you walk, make your body stand erect with your back straight and your shoulders back. This forces you to suck in your tummy making your tummy muscles work harder and tones them up as you stride forward with each step like you really mean it!

It also has the effect of building your confidence because you get used to walking this way after a while and it becomes the norm for you. When you feel more confident, you are spurred on to bigger and better things and may begin tinkering with the idea of taking up more easy kinds of exercise, like maybe swimming.

The bottom line is that by briskly walking for an hour every day, it will help you to maintain a better looking, more toned figure, and also help you to lose weight by burning off the excess calories.

100 Weight Loss Tips number 83 follows along in the next post!

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Posted on Sun, 05 Jul 2009 in Top 100 Weight Loss Tips | 2 Comments