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Start Walking For Fitness and Weight Loss

May 4th, 2007 Subscribe To Our Feed

Are you serious about starting a fitness and weight loss program? If the answer is yes, fitness walking is one of the fastest ways for you to accomplish your goals. Fitness walking merely involves walking at a fast pace. My usual pace for fitness walking is 3.7 miles per hour. It’s a great exercise because it is low impact, is easy to do and you can adjust your pace based upon your fitness level.

Make sure you have the following before starting a fitness walking program:

heart rate monitor;
walking shoes;
a water bottle; and
headband, if you’re like me and your scalp sweats a lot. Trust me, this is a necessity and will make your exercise session much more comfortable.

Using a heart rate monitor is a great way for you to monitor the intensity of your fitness walking program, ensure a safe and consistent walking pace and track your progress. You may want to ask your doctor to recommend an exercise target heart rate for you to start walking at.

In order for your fitness and weight loss program to be effective you need to fitness walk at least 3 times per week for 20-30 minutes. Start out slow and you can increase the intensity, duration and frequency as your fitness level improves.

Fitness Walking and Treadmills

I only recommend treadmills for fitness walking, not jogging or running because I prefer low impact aerobic exercises. If you are just starting your fitness and weight loss program, here are some guidelines:

walk 20-30 minutes, 3 days per week for at least one week before increasing your workout;
start walking at a brisk pace that is comfortable for you and that you can maintain during your entire workout;
use a heart rate monitor and walk at your fat burning rate which is 60%-70% of your maximum heart rate, unless your doctor recommends otherwise. (Your maximum heart rate is computed as follows: 220 - your age = max heart rate.) Your fat burning rate is considered low to moderate intensity and good for fitness, health, weight loss and endurance. Most treadmills will adjust the incline or you can adjust the speed in order to maintain a steady heart rate.
Remember to breath steady and regularly. Breath deeply in through your nose and exhale steadily through your mouth. Try to breath as consistently as possible and focus on your breathing as you are walking. Breathing in this manner will prevent most people from losing their breath or huffing and puffing while they are exercising. This form of breathing also has a calming effect similar to meditation.
If you can not keep your breath steady or you can not work out for at least 20 minutes at your fat burning rate, you need to lower the intensity of your fitness walking. Try lowering your exercise heart rate by 5-10 beats per minute and continue doing so until you find a heart rate that you can maintain for 20 minutes.
Make sure you drink plenty of water as you are fitness walking.

Follow the above guidelines and adjust your fitness walking as your fitness level improves. It should not be long before you begin to see results with respect to both fitness and weight loss. You know that your fitness level is improving when:

you are no longer breathing heavily while fitness walking. This means your lung capacity and cardiovascular fitness is improving;
you are not sweating as much during your workout;
the treadmill keeps increasing the incline in order to maintain your fat burning heart rate. This means that your heart is getting stronger.

Once you start to notice some of the above improvements, it may be time to increase the duration of your workouts, increase the frequency of your workouts or increase the intensity of your workouts. You increase the intensity of your fitness walking program by increasing your exercise target heart rate. You can either increase the intensity for your entire workout or for a portion of your workout. Mix it up so that you do not get bored and you continue to experience improvements in both fitness and weight loss.

When you see improvement or reach milestones, you should celebrate. Give yourself a reward, you deserve it.

Here are some additional tips to maximize weight loss:

add some strength training to your program. This helps to ensure your lose fat and not muscle;
do your fitness walking early in the morning before you eat. You should burn more fat versus burning the food that you just ate;
eat six small meals instead of 3 large meals. This will increase your metabolism and burn more calories.;
drink lots of water. This will flush out your system, keep you hydrated and prevent your body from storing excess water reserves.
eat a balanced diet. Eat lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low fat meals.

Remember the basic rule: in order to lose weight you need to burn more calories than your consume.

When you are ready for more information on fitness walking, check out out earlier article:

Fitness Walking: The Ultimate Exercise

Happy Walking

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