If a pill could significantly lower the risk of heart attack, diabetes, stroke, osteoporosis and breast and colon cancer while reducing weight, cholesterol levels, constipation, depression and impotence and also increase muscle mass, flatten the belly and reshape the thighs even as it reduced the risk of age-related dementia and made you better-looking — and had no negative side effects — there would be panic in the streets. The American economy would tip into chaos. The military would have to be called in to secure supplies of the medication.
Luckily, there is no such pill.
But a large and growing body of credible research demonstrates that taking a good walk most days of the week can deliver all of the health benefits cited above and more (although we admit the “better-looking” part is harder to prove).
Yes, walking. You know: one foot in front of the other, repeat, rinse, repeat…
…[Early] in your walk your adrenal glands begin secreting adrenaline, which gets into your bloodstream and signals your heart to beat faster and causes your blood pressure to go up. The heart then begins to pump more blood away from the chest and into the muscles of the limbs you’re using to get yourself down the street. As a result, blood vessels in the arms and legs begin to expand as they’re fed more nutrients and oxygen by the blood.
As your heart rate climbs, you’re taking more breaths per minute, sometimes increasing your oxygen intake to 10 times the amount you’d be taking in if you were sitting still. As the muscles receive more blood, they begin to use up carbohydrates and sugar starches they’ve stored. Metabolism — the process by which the body breaks down materials and converts them to fuel — speeds up. As a result, so does digestion.
All this activity causes the brain to release endorphins into the bloodstream. Endorphins, which have chemical properties similar to opium, are responsible for blocking pain and ushering in that cozy sense of well-being you feel as soon as your walk ends. Additionally, exercise causes the brain to release an abundance of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which works to elevate mood.
And that’s all during the course of one walk. If you walk regularly, you can expect exponentially more benefits. [Redfearn]
Redfearn, Suz. “Take a Walk.” The Washington Post. 1 October 2002. <www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17484-2002Sep28> (7 June 2004).
I was just wondering if, by keeping your food log, you’re trying to lose weight. I tried that a few years ago, and it worked well once I started to monitor my food intake. But whats your reason for the food log??
Actually, that is it exactly. When I started this, I weighed about 180 pounds. By walking about an hour a day and monitoring my food intake I managed to get my weight down as low as 155 pounds — which is where I was targeting. I am up to 158 now, but I have also started working out, so I attribute some of that to added muscle. It will probably get pretty boring for all concerned, but I hope to keep this up for the next couple of years — I hear that you cannot call a diet successful unless you can keep it up for 3 years, by that point it is no longer a diet, but a lifestyle change. Something you can live with.
Did you change your diet???
The only change I really made was that I did not pig out over the holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years) like I usually do. My mother was really miffed about that. Gretchen and I have been on a low salt, low cholesterol diet for about a decade now. No canned food (too much salt). No prepared food (too much salt). No fast food (too much salt and fat). All cooking in olive oil (butter for flavor only). Very little meat — a serving being about four ounces — almost none of it red meat. Lots of fruits and vegetables. There were two things I did when I decided (accepted) that I was overweight. I started walking and I (we) decided to enforce a little portion control. You see, even though we were cooking really healthy, we were making recipes that served six and sitting down and eating it all between the two of us. It turns out that there is not much that does not freeze and it is awfully convenient to have a bunch of good healthy frozen food when your not feeling like cooking. So, yes and no. I did not change my diet. I reduced the number of calories I took in and increased the number of calories I expended.