Walking for Fat Loss???Written by Jesse Cannone
With obesity and disease increasing dramatically, many fitness experts are recommending walking for weight loss and fitness. Some are even going so far as saying that walking is best way to burn fat and lose weight. I strongly disagree with this and am going to show you why walking is NOT effective at burning off body fat. Yes, you read that correctly... Walking is NOT effective at burning body fat and if your goal is fat loss you might be wasting your time. I am not saying that walking is not beneficial, I am saying that if fat loss is primary goal, there are far better choices that will deliver far better results. The primary benefits of walking are increased blood flow and circulation, improved recovery, and a strengthened immune system. There are several reasons why walking in not best choice when it comes to fat loss. Here are just a few: 1. Walking does NOT burn a lot of calories The lower intensity of activity or exercise smaller number of calories burned per unit of time. For example, you can burn more calories in 15 minutes of bicycling at a high intensity level than you can in 45 minutes of easy walking. 2. Walking does NOT result in a large increase in metabolism Another downside to walking is that because it’s generally low intensity it results in only a small increase in metabolism that will only last approximately 1-2 hours after walk. On other hand, metabolism increases are larger and last longer (4-24 hrs or more) when you perform high intensity cardio workouts. 3. Walking does NOT deplete muscle glycogen Low intensity exercise like walking does not deplete muscle glycogen levels and therefore, later that day if you have excess calories they will likely be stored as body fat whereas if you deplete glycogen excess calories will primarily be stored in muscles. So why then do so many fitness and health experts recommend walking for weight loss? One reason is that people don’t want to hear that they have to work hard so they figure some activity is better than none. Another reason is that body burns more fat for fuel when exercising at an easy pace, however, total amount of energy used is so small that you end up burning off little body fat. That’s also why when you choose “fat burning” program on your treadmill or bike it has you exercise at any easy level. Yes, you’re burning fat, but so little that you’d have to exercise at that easy pace for hours and hours each day. High intensity cardiovascular/aerobic exercise is much more effective in burning off excess body fat. In fact, several studies have been done to prove this. In one study they compared one group who did moderate level aerobics for 45 minutes with another group who performed high intensity workouts for 15 minutes. They did before and after fitness testing including body fat analysis and found that group who performed high intensity aerobics lost nine times as much body fat!
| | PreventionWritten by Dr. Donald A. Miller
Prevention is a wonderful word that is too little appreciated by people in North America and many other countries. Just look at recent news.Prevention applies to mega forest fires (controlled burns in advance), earthquakes (better construction in California than Iran saved lives during similar levels of earth tremors), and many diseases. Unfortunately, medical - pharmacology complex finds it far more profitable to treat diseases with pills and "procedures" (surgery), than to prevent them with good diet and lifestyle practices. Unfortunately, most of us prefer magic cures to taking responsibility for our own health. What is far worse is that many tests and surgeries are popular, but actually do little for overall longevity. Examples: CHOLESTEROL level in blood is easy to test, but is not whole story for heart attack and stroke. But pill pushers love to sell drugs to reduce cholesterol levels.
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