Walking is Good for Your Health:

After a looong Winter, today's temperatures of 60 degrees here in the Midwest felt like I was in the Tropics. Many people were outside enjoying the Sun and after lounging on the couch all afternoon, I went down to the bike path next to the Mighty Mississippi.

The path had a lot of water in various places, which should be expected with all the snow we've had. Just being outside and walking in decent weather more than made up for the puddles, mud, and goose crap. I think these geese have forgotten that they are Canadian and spend most of their time down here.

I like to use walking as my "cardio" activity. I also do a lot of joint mobility movements, which are like a Westernized version of Tai Chi. Since I weigh 240 lbs. walking is pretty good exercise for me. I usually walk at a fairly quick pace but I don't worry about monitoring my heart rate or anything like that.

At my size walking is a great way to get my daily movement quota and enjoy the outdoors at the same time. Somebody of my weight would run the risk of overuse injuries to their muscles and joints by jogging too much.

Just to give you an example, if I took a walk with someone who weighed 120 pounds and we walked the same pace for the same length of time, I would be doing twice as much work. My calorie burn might not be exactly double - I'd have to break out my old college text books - but I would definitely burn significantly more calories.

In case you're not familiar with my writing, I'm not a big advocate of doing regular cardio activity. Steady state cardio is fine if you are preparing for endurance competition, but is overrated for fat loss in my opinion. Yes, you can find many runners who are very lean, but you can also find many people who do cardio only workouts who are not that lean. Some have a downright "soft" appearance.

If you are walking or doing the elliptical machine because that is all your joints can handle, than that is fine. I believe most people with physical limitations should still do light walking or some type of water exercise to keep their muscles and joints from getting even stiffer. If this is your case, start out with mild walking for 10-15 minutes and slowly build up your exercise endurance.

Any movement should help you feel better and give some health benefits. If you are currently doing nothing, 15 minutes of daily movement can still benefit you. It increases the circulation to your muscles and joints, lubricating your joints in synovial fluid. This movement will also increase the circulation of your lymphatic system, which unlike the blood, is totally dependent on motion to push lymphatic fluid through your body, helping remove toxins.

I actually get most of my cardio from my strength training workouts. By choosing exercises that involve several muscles such as pushups, pullups, squats, and lunges, I can get my heart rate up fairly easily. I combine these exercises into a circuit where I go from one exercise to the next with little rest in between. By doing this I get a lot of work done in about 30 minutes, with my heart rate elevated the entire time.

This way I get cardiovascular benefits at the same time I strengthen my muscles.....and bones. Don't forget about bone mass. Baby Boomers should be concerned as much about keeping their bone mass as they should about keeping their hearts healthy. This efficient exercise, known as interval training, allows me to get a lot of work done in a short amount of time, ensuring that lack of time is no excuse for not exercising.

So if not planning on running half marathons or triathlons, interval training and interval cardio exercise is more efficient and more manageable for most busy people, provided you are healthy enough for this more intense activity.

Then, you can take nice enjoyable walks to add in a little extra calorie burning. You can also use this time to relax and spend time with someone else or just clear your own mind and reduce your stress levels, something we all could use in this fast-paced world of ours.