There is no better exercise to begin with if you have not been exercising regularly. Walking is an excellent
form of light aerobic workout. It will help to strengthen your legs, lungs, and heart. Walking is also safe
for your joints. Don't just start right out by jogging or running if you haven't been exercising. Start off by
walking - at least for the first couple of weeks to a month.
Walking at a relatively moderate pace (say, 3 miles per hour) will burn 300 to 400 calories per hour. That
means if you take just a 15 minute walk, once a day, you're burning an extra 100 calories per day, or 700
calories a week... that's one-fifth of a pound of body fat lost per week, just from a 15-minute walk every
day. Get that up to a 30-minute walk per day, and you'll be shedding a pound every two weeks.
If you find that you're really out of shape and you can't walk for 15 minutes - that's fine. Walk as long as
you can and write it down in your Activity Journal. If you walked for 5 minutes today, great! You're putting
in the effort. Tomorrow, try for six minutes. Above all else, don't go overboard and try walking too long.
You don't want to push yourself too hard and then injure yourself and not be able to walk at all tomorrow.
Remember, your knees and ankles might not start swelling up until later that night... at which time it will be
too late to do anything except ice them and hope they don't hurt tomorrow.
You can easily incorporate more walking into your daily schedule by parking your car far from stores or
by taking the stairs instead of the elevator. Look for any excuse to walk. Me, personally, if I need to go
somewhere and I can walk there (or ride my bike in the summer), I will - weather permitting. Of course, I
live in Buffalo NY, so the weather is real crappy here most of the year, but even in the winter I will bundle
up and walk to the store.
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