Posts Tagged ‘Walking’

Walk Around – The best exercise to live a life free of illness and have an ideal body weight

Walking is considered to be the best exercise and medicine for slowing the aging process, reducing the chances of illness and slashing down body fat. Walking is the best no stress, no sweat answer to lifelong conditioning. All you need is a good pair of shoes, a little time, a few guidelines from some fitness expert. Walking has always been one of the best ways to strengthen the bones, control your weight, tone your muscles, maintain a good posture and eventually improve your self image.

- Walking involves almost every muscle of the body. Blood circulation to joints is improved and massages the blood vessels keeping them more elastic.
- Walking helps to maintain efficient metabolism.
- Walking in convenient too as you do not need a gym or any special equipment.
- Weight loss from low calorie and especially low carbohydrate diet consist mostly of water and muscle. When the weight returns, it comes back as fat. To avoid getting fatter over time, you must increase your metabolism by exercising daily.
- Walk at a steady and brisk pace as it burns more fat because it burns more calories. Increase your pace over time.
- To lose weight, it is ideal to alternate the walking sessions between high intensity and lower intensity days. Walk on the first day with a steady and moderate pace. Increase your speed the following day. You can also break up your walk with some sets of squats, lunges, bench push ups or other body weight exercises to make it a real cardiovascular and muscle blaster of a workout.
- Make walking a fun and keep it up consistently.
- Slow and casual walking has benefits but you will not get as much out of walking at a very slow pace because we all have a built in mechanical advantage for walking long distances at normal speeds.
- Always walk after each meal. It prevents from building up of fat.
- Climbing two flights of stairs a day burns off half a pound of body fat in a year.

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Losing weight on thighs and hips by keeping a track on diet and exercise.

Losing weight can be one of the hardest physical challenges that one can go through in life. Women tend to gain weight on hips and thighs. Women have a tendency to accumulate fatty acids in their body, specifically in the thighs and hips. Women must not only do the right thigh exercises, but also include aerobic exercise and sound nutrition to get best results.
Thighs are a difficult part of the body for women, because it is hard to lose weight in this area and keep the thighs toned.

EXERCISE

- Building up your leg muscles is the first step towards losing weight on your butt, thighs and hips.
- Squats are one of the best exercises you can do for your hips, butt and thighs and they’re also a functional exercise, helping us build strength for a variety of daily activities.
- Lunges are a challenging exercise as on the front leg, you’ll work the glutes and hamstrings and, on the back leg, you’ll work the quads and calves.
- Step ups are another great exercise for the glutes. For step ups, place one foot on a step or platform and push through the heel to lift the body up. The other key is to concentrate all your weight on the stepping leg.
- The stepper is an effective way to lose thigh fat because it focuses on the butt muscles.
- Running, like walking is accessible, especially on elevation are easy to learn, reduces stress, helps in weight loss, and it makes you feel good.
- Swimming is an excellent way to lose fat from your thighs.

DIET

- A healthy diet has of course been so effective in not only getting rid of fat deposits but also in maintaining the overall soundness of the body.
- Cut on the amount and type of oil and fat in the diet.
- Avoid too much paneer, oil in dals (pulses) or even combination of oil and cereal.
- Cut down on your carbohydrates intake like potato, rice, grains, pasta. Use brown carbs instead like sweet potatoes, whole grain bread; increase your lean protein intake such as chicken, egg whites, cottage cheese, protein shakes etc.
- Eat less carbohydrates and more proteins.
- Eat more of channa roti (chapati), wheat and soya mixed roti or the diabetic atta roti which is made with dals and other cereals leaving out pure wheat.
- The non-vegetarians can eat all varieties of foods including fish and chicken. Go easy on red meat; you can have it once in a week.
- Eat lots of green vegetables.
- Cut down on fruit juices.

Loosen up – the best warm-up

If you stretch when the muscles are cold, the risk of injury including pulled muscles is increased. Before you stretch, warm up the muscles with a low intensity activity such as walking for several minutes while gently pumping your arms. Using a light weight do a warm up set of the exercises you are intending to do to target the muscles. Stretching muscles after a more strenuous activity or exercise is also beneficial.
- Save time by holding your stretches : It takes time to lengthen tissues safely. Ideally, hold your stretches for at least 30 seconds up to 60 seconds for a really tight muscle or problem area. If you do so, you will need to do each stretch only once or twice for most muscle groups.
- Ease into each stretch : Spend the first 15 seconds in an easy stretch, just to the point that you feel a mild tension – never bounce. The tension should be comfortable, not painful. Then stretch just a fraction of an inch farther until you again feel mild tension – not pain – and hold the stretch for 15 seconds. If you feel pain, that is too far. Back off to the point where the pain is gone, and that is where you will want to hold the stretch.
- Breathe : Do not hold your breath while stretching. Exhale as you go into a stretch and then breathe slowly and evenly as you hold it.

The Best Warm-Up
If you have time for just one warm-up exercise, try the squat to stand. It improves mobility in the ankles, hamstrings, torso, and upper
back, and is particularly great before a squat workout. Place your feet slightly outside shoulder width and reach your arms overhead. keeping legs as straight as possible, bend at the hips and try to touch your toes. Now squat down to where your thighs are parallel to the floor, and let your arms hang inside your knees. keep your eyes focused ahead the whole time. Then from the squat position, reach both arms up to the ceiling, extending your upper back as much as possible. Now stand up. This is one repetition.