Fitness

Why Walking Works

Change Your Life, One Step at a Time

Written by Josh and Jessi Armstrong

Walking is the most UNDERRATED form of exercise

that you are not doing enough of.

You may be thinking “hold on, walking isn’t exercise.”

That’s where the majority are mistaken. Walking may be one of the most effective tools for weight loss and maintenance, general health, and longevity. Let’s discuss the numerous ways walking benefits each and every person.

Let’s start with the general fitness benefits walking provides:

• Strengthening and activating core and leg musculature. • Bone health and strength. • Heart health. • Joint support and movement. • Boosts immune function.

Working our muscles, and moving our joints often is key to maintaining mobility, and ability for all ages. Movement through our joints allows them to stay well lubricated, strong, and pain free. This is important for all ages, but becomes particularly important as we reach advanced age. Getting your steps in also provides a benefit to the muscles of the core and legs, maintaining muscle mass, strength, and increasing muscular endurance allowing us to perform activity longer. In addition to our muscle and joint health, walking is great for our cardiovascular system and has shown to reduce risk of heart failure, heart attack, and heart disease.

For anyone seeking the keys to dropping those last few pounds. Our first response is always, “how many steps are you getting each day?” While it isn’t a flashy, body-burning, sweat-dripping class in the gym, walking can be more helpful and more effective for most people seeking to lose a few pounds.

This is for a number of reasons:

• Low impact, low stress. • Minimal equipment needed, easy to do. • Easy to get steps throughout the day, at work, at home, grocery store, etc.

Weight loss requires us to intake less calories than we burn. Many people see a hard workout as a good way to

burn calories, or dramatically increase their daily calorie burn, it’s not. Go for a walk or find a way to increase your daily activity, many more of our daily calories are burned in the hours we spend outside of the gym performing daily activities, we call this NEAT or Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.

Increasing daily steps and daily activity will be the easiest way to start seeing a big difference in your waistline. Here are a few ways we can increase our NEAT.

• Go for a walk. • Perform household chores. • Work in the yard/garden. • Park farther from the entrance to work or the store. • Take the stairs. • Take a lunch-time walk. • Walk around your living room.

For weight maintenance and weight loss, it is all about our energy (calorie) balance. Adding in more movement throughout our day, no matter what it may be, will only help reach your goals sooner than later.

Taking that daily stroll can provide more than just physical benefits. The mental health benefits of walking are numerous:

• Decreased anxiety. • Increased creativity. • Less risk of depression. • Decrease in negative thoughts and feelings. • Elevated mood, attentiveness, and self-confidence.

This suggests that maybe we should be spending less of our time scrolling the ‘gram, and more time getting those steps in. Social media has shown to increase our negative thoughts, increase depression, and destroy our self-confidence. Instead, use that time to take a walk, decompress, refresh, take in some sunlight, and allow yourself to clear your mind. You’ll thank yourself later!

So strap on those walking shoes and begin changing your life one step at a time!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------Josh and Jessi Armstrong are the owners and operators of Metamorphosis Personal Training in Post Falls.