Health and Weight Loss Benefits of Walking

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Walking is a gentle and the easiest form of exercise to stay healthy. It is convenient for all because it can be done anytime and anywhere. It is also safe for people in all ages. Compared to other exercises, walking creates less strain on your joints and it puts less stress on your lower back. Walking also helps you to maintain or improve your overall health. Regular walking is helpful for increasing cardiovascular fitness, boosting endurance and muscle power, reducing excess body fat, and strengthening bones. It is also beneficial for reducing health problems such as osteoporosis, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers. Unlike other form of exercises, walking does not require any special training or equipment. Here is a detailed analysis of health and weight loss benefits of walking.

Walking and Heart Health

Every year, around 250,000 people die in the United States due to lack of regular physical activities. Daily exercise like walking is highly helpful for strengthening your heart muscle. It enables your heart to pump more efficiently and deliver more nutrients and oxygen to the other organs. Regular walking helps to decrease the level of LDL (bad) cholesterol. Thus, you can reduce the risk of stroke and heart disease. Walking is also beneficial for increasing the level of HDL (good) cholesterol. 30 minutes brisk walk is enough for preventing and controlling high blood pressure, which can cause stroke. Therefore, you can reduce the risk of heart problems by up to 27 per cent if you walk every day.

Walking and Weight Loss Benefits

Regular walking is highly effective for burning stored fat, building muscles, and speeding up your metabolism. Mostly, people enjoy walking and it is one of the safest forms of exercise. If you can stick on regular walking program, you can maintain your weight very easily. The number of calories you can burn per minute depends on your walking pace and your body weight. Stomach is the common place to accumulate excess fat and it creates greater health problems than fat in other parts of your body. Stomach fat adversely affects your internal organs and it leads to heart diseases, high blood pressure, stroke and even cancer. All these problems can be reduced if you can decrease fatty tissues around your abdomen. Walking is an effective method to reduce fat around your abdomen.

Type 2 Diabetes

As per the findings of George Washington University, a 15 minute walk after each meal can reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. It can also reduce blood sugar level significantly and minimize the risk of cardiovascular diseases. The risk of diabetes can also be reduced if you can walk for 30 minutes in a day. Type 2 diabetes complications are the major reason behind the misery and death in the United States. It also leads to amputations, kidney failure, blindness, impotence and shortening of life by 5-7 years. You can prevent this problem by changing your life style. Walking is the simplest way to avoid these types of chronic health problems.

Walking Lessens Severity of Osteoporosis

Regular walking is the best way to prevent osteoporosis and strengthen your bones. Even though you already have osteoporosis, you can reduce it and maintain your bone mass by walking regularly. When you walk every day, it helps to build muscle and thicken your bones. However, people with osteoporosis believe that regular walking may increase the risk of injury from broken bones. But, this is not true. You can prevent falls and related fractures if you can design regular walking program. Walking improves your flexibility, coordination and balance.

Walking Reduces the Risk of Cancer

Walking is highly helpful for reducing the risk of different types of cancers especially breast cancer among women. Each year, around 150,000 Americans are diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Various studies prove that regular exercises can reduce the risk of colon cancer by 20%. Walking is helpful for changing digestive acids and other substances in your body. These changes are helpful for protecting your body from colon cancer. The risk of colon cancer also reduces when insulin and fat in your body reduces. Regular walking is also helpful for reducing chronic inflammation.

Other Health Benefits of Walking

A good walk can shape and strengthen your legs, and it gives great definition to your quads, calves, and hamstrings. You can even tone your abs if you are ready to pay attention to your postures as well. Walking in the daylight is helpful for boosting stored vitamin D in your body. It is an essential nutrient and it is very hard to get it from food. But your body can synthesize vitamin D from exposure to sunlight. Vitamin D deficiency is a common health problem from people around the world. Vitamin D nutrient plays an important role in everything from immunity to bone health.

Mental Benefits of Walking

Walking is the best method to alleviate and prevent depression. It can also improve lots of cognitive functions as well. It is highly beneficial for improving your mental alertness and memory. You can enhance your problem solving and intellectual creativity by walking regularly. It is the best way to elevates mood, improves self esteem, relieving stress, insomnia and sleep apnea.

Interesting Statistics of Walking

If you are able to do exercises regularly, it will helps to boost your mood. Brisk walking is as effective as antidepressants in patients with mild to moderate depression. Physical activity helps to release feel good endorphins in to your bloodstream, which is helpful for reducing anxiety and stress. You can also control the feeling of loneliness and isolation if you meet friends or joining a walking group. Every minute of walking can able to extend your life by 1.5-2 minutes. Faster, shorter walks are highly effective for conditioning your lungs and heart. walking is highly helpful for burning off around 15 % fat, 70 % carbohydrates, and around 8 % protein. If you can walk around 150 minutes per week, you can lose around 7% of your body weight and can reduce the risk of diabetes by 58%.

Walking has myriad health benefits. Therefore, the number of people who adopt this physical activity is also increasing. Once you decided to start your walking program, select comfortable dress and walking shoes. If you are not able to walk for 30 minutes at a time, try for shorter time period. However, if you can walk more, you can burn more calories.

Jess Varkey

Some say he’s half man half fish, others say he’s more of a seventy/thirty split. Either way he’s a fishy bastard.

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