How to stay injury free when you start your walking; Please consider this advice as guidance before you start your walking adventures.
Start slowly, increase gently work your way up to your goal.
Take your time do not be impatient.
We do not intended to wage war on our weight, rather creep up on it like it crept up on us! Another thing that will speed up our efforts for fitness and weight-loss is, as we all know is sensible eating.
This does not mean Dieting.
If you are anything like me and love eating; then walking for fun and fitness will work for you.
Setting goals for yourself is important, But not for a few weeks yet, let's get into our walking first! Walking for Exercise, has worked for me...
My weight crept up to 87 kilograms 2 years ago, and my cholesterol was not far behind it! I had to do something about it.
I chose walking; as my platform for exercise as walking does not involve over exertion of any proportion.
Walking is the only thing that I have continued to do to get back into any sort of shape.
Slowly increasing my efforts and my distances combined with sensible eating, by incorporating smaller portion sizes at meal times.
I look better, feel great, and I am far more healthy from the efforts of my persistence in walking.
The key to your walking success...
A common but understandable mistake, is to overdo it on our first walk.
The results of this is your legs stiffen up the next day, and it becomes painful to walk normally until the stiffness subsides.
If possible try to guard against this! Our main aim here is to use walking for fun first, as a fitness routine second, and losing weight third.
Loosing weight is something that we should not be overly concerned about, Walking for enjoyment is our goal! Exercise is not about hurting yourself...
No Pain No Gain! that is a ridiculous statement.
You are in control do as little or as much as you feel comfortable with.
Don't be pushed past your limit by anyone or anything.
It's only natural if you do some extra activities your body will re-act; Your muscles will stiffen up a little, This is normal.
by not overdoing it we will keep our stiffness to a minimum.
This is a good thing! Without question, your legs will ache...
The more you walk the tighter your leg muscles will become, until your muscles get used to regular exercise.
This is known as Muscle Memory.
The reason you ache is because you are stretching your muscles past your normal daily routine.
That is why it's important to build up slowly to achieve your goal.
A little perseverance will be needed here...
To stay focused, do the same walk every day for one week, by the second week the efforts that you have already put in will start to pay off.
The first 4 to 6 weeks are going to be the most difficult.
Get through these; and before you know it you will be hooked on walking.
So as you concentrate on your walking and enjoy your new pass time your fitness will increase, your heart will grow stronger, your breathing will improve immensely, and your weight will be slowly and most definitely decreasing in the background.
Sweet! We are on our way; See you out there!