Health Tips

Walking for a Good Health
* Walking is a great way to improve or maintain your overall health. Just 30 minutes every day can increase cardiovascular fitness, strengthen bones, reduce excess body fat, and boost muscle power and endurance. Here are some tips on how you can make walking your exercise routine.

Walking for 30 minutes a day.
To get the health benefits, try to walk for at least 30 minutes as briskly that you can on most days of the week. "brisk" means that you can still talk but not sing, and you may be puffing slightly. Moderate activities such as walking pose little health risk but, if you have a medical condition, check with your doctor before starting any new exercise program of physical activity.

Building Physical Activity into your life.
If it's too difficult to walk for 30 munutes at one time, do regular small bouts (10 minutes) three times per day and gradually build up to longer sessions. However, if your goal is to lose weight, you will need to do physical activity for longer than 30 minutes each day. You can still achieve this by starting with smaller bouts of activity throughout the day and increasing these as your fitness improves.

Make walking part of your routine.
Try to make walking a routine - for example, try to walk at the same time each day. Remember, you use the same amount of energy, no matter what time of day you walk, so do what is most convenient for you. You may find that asking someone to walk with you will help make it a regular activity. Some people finde that keeping an activity diary or log also makes it easier.

 A Comfortable intensity for walking.
For most people, there is little difference in the amount of energy used by walking a kilometer or running a kilometer - it's just that walking takes longer. Plan to cover a set distance each day and monitor how long it takes you to walk this distance. As your fitness improves, you will be able to walk a longer distance and use more energy.

Warming up and cooling down after walking.
The best way to warm up is to walk slowly. Start off each walk at a leisurely pace to give your muscles time to warm up, and then pick up the speed. Afterwards, gently stretch your leg muscles - particularly your calves and front and back thighs. Stretches should be held for about 20 seconds. if you feel any pain, ease off the stretch.

Making walking a pleasure.
Some suggestions to help make regular walking a pleasurable form of physical activity include varying where you walk, walking the dog, walking friends and joining a walking club.