Walk Info

This is where we will provide interesting walk related information.

Understanding How to Lose Weight.

Energy balance, metabolism and weight management – what the infomercials don’t tell us!
Do you find yourself totally confused by the bombardment of information about what to eat, what not to eat, when to eat, when to walk, run or buy an ab-circle pro?!
The stress of it all simply drives us to the usual answer in a crisis – bad food and lots of it!
Sound like you? (It’s definitely me!)

The Laziness Gene

Have you ever wondered why you can't get off the couch and exercise — despite paying for an expensive gym membership, despite your New Year's resolutions, even despite the doctor's scolding at your last checkup? Turns out that your inertia may be coded right into your genes.

10 Great Exercise Tips

Exercise Motivation: How to Get It, How to Keep It

Hate to exercise? These 10 tips can help you find the motivation for working out.

To succeed in sticking to an exercise routine, people need a reason to carry on when that little voice inside says, "Sit on the couch. Have a doughnut."
There are plenty of reasons we should be exercising. Not only does exercise help us reach and maintain a healthy body weight, it also can help lower blood pressure, "bad" cholesterol and trigycerides; strengthen bones; lower the risk for cancer; help us battle depression; and decrease stress. Many experts say it even improves our sex lives.
So we all know exercise is good for us. Why do so many of us hate it?
Intimidation is a factor also, experts say. When you're out of shape, it takes courage to don workout duds and head for the gym or to pound the pavement.
If any of this sounds familiar, don't give up hope.

Time to get Moving

39,000 women couldn't get it wrong. Walking is good for you !

New research challenges the notion that you can be fat and fit, finding that even active overweight women are more likely to suffer heart attacks.

The study
Harvard-affiliated researchers set out to answer the question: is it possible for active overweight women to be as healthy as normal-weight women who take part in regular physical exercise? The answer, they found, is no. In fact, after monitoring 39,000 women over an 11-year period, they found that although being active can lower the heart risks faced by heavy women, it does not completely eliminate them.

How often do you need to sweat it out in order to fit into the "active" category? According to the study, the active women who followed government-recommended guidelines got at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise most days of the week. Their exercise of choice? Brisk walking or jogging came in top of the list. Women who got less exercise than this were considered by the researchers to be inactive.

The weigh-in
Pounding the pavement for half an hour every day paid off for the active women — they significantly lowered their heart attack risk. For the overweight, inactive women the news wasn't good — in fact, the results were frightening. Compared with normal-weight active women, the risk of developing heart disease was 54 percent higher in overweight active women. It was 88 percent higher in overweight inactive women and a staggering two-and-a-half times greater in obese inactive women.

Get moving

Exercise is key
The results are clear — excess weight can increase your risk of heart-related illness and it can also increase blood pressure and the risk of diabetes by increasing cholesterol. Exercise, however, counteracts all of these.

The study's lead author, Dr Amy Weinstein from Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, agrees. "Physical activity really does make a difference." She's quick to add that, "If you're overweight or obese you can't really get back to that lower risk entirely with just physical activity alone."

Motivation for the New Year

How can you expect to find the motivation to exercise, unless you actually look for it?

This is courtesy of Sheta at www.evolveyourself.co.nz
How can you expect to find the motivation to exercise, unless you actually look for it?

Maybe someone has given you a comment that hit a nerve such as “are you really going to eat that!?” or tells you that “yes those pants do make your butt look big”. Or you hope on the scales and hope that they are broken – or you try to blame it on 'that time of the month'.

Something that can make one person put down the toffee pops (chips, cheese, chocolate, whatever), and get into some exercise may not have any effect on someone else. Realising the benefits of exercise and what can be gained from doing it regularly may be good for one person, but others may have to be scared into doing it.

Starting to be more active, and living a healthier lifestyle is something you need to do for yourself, for your health, wellbeing, and also that you can have the energy to do the things you enjoy – and look good doing it!

If living longer and looking great with an abundance of energy to keep up with the kids, and up with (or ahead of) your friends, isn’t enough of a motivator, these ideas may help you!

Getting Started - The Wonder Walkers Way

Thinking of taking up regular walking? Great stuff. Here's a few of our tips on things that we found helped.

How Many Steps Are Good?

Published guidelines suggest that 10000 steps of concentrated walking per day is beneficial. Health officials have said that at this level of activity per day most people could lose excess weight, improve their fitness and reduce the risk of many lifestyle related diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes.

Tips for Walking Well

Keep head up – chin to be parallel to ground -walking with head down can cause problems to back, neck and shoulders.

Don’t lean back or forward – Try to stand up staight.

Don’t overstride – try and take shorter quicker steps using back foot for kicking off.

Use your arms for power and support –Try and keep elbows by your side – Hands shouldn’t go above breast height.

Try to ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All about Pedometers

Hopefully Spring is around the corner, many of you may already be thinking about getting back into exercise after a very cold winter and a few too many nights of comfort food to keep us warm. The resolution to “exercise more and eat less,” is not impossible.

A simple gadget (or two) may be the perfect solution to these dilemmas. Research is showing the simple pedometer—a small, inexpensive device which counts your steps—to be an excellent motivational tool for physical activity and the health benefits of physical activity are well established.

Sports Drinks and Dental Decay

As we rush out the door to our spin class or walk clutching our sports drink – have we stopped and given our teeth a thought? Probably not. Our teeth are taking a hammering in our attempts to become healthy and fit. Do we really need those sports drinks?