Beginners guide to starting a walking routine

There are so many reasons walking is good for you, it’s virtually impossible to talk about all of them in one short report. So, think of this as a mini primer. Before we get into the “why” of things, here are some fun and interesting facts about walking:

· Every step you take uses up to 200 muscles.

· The average person walks the equivalent distance of five equators in his or her lifetime.

·  Believe it or not, it’s better to swing your arms when you walk. Why? When you don’t, it increases the effort of walking up to 12 percent.

· Under certain circumstances, when you walk, the pressure you put on your feet exceeds your total body weight. If you run, this pressure can be up to three or four times your weight.

·Want to burn more calories? Try walking sideways. It actually gets rid of 78 percent more of the little culprits.

Walking uphill increases cardiovascular fitness and muscle tone

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· It takes approximately one hour 43 minutes to walk off 540 calories, which happens to be the caloric count of a Big Mac. If your meal included a super-size Coke and French fries, you need to walk seven hours to burn the calories.

· If you’re trying to improve your health, experts suggest walking 6,000 steps per day. If you’re trying to lose weight, walk a total of 10,000 steps to get the job done.

·  Some people get exercise via walking, even when they don’t want to. Sleepwalking, also known as somnambulism, affects approximately 18 percent of the world’s population.

· The term “walk” comes from the old English word “wealcan,” which means “to roll.”

·  It’s extremely important to be constantly aware of your surroundings when you walk. Statistics indicate a person is 36 more times likely to be killed walking than driving a car and 300 times more likely to be killed walking than traveling via airplane.

Now it’s time to cover some of the many reasons walking is good for you and an excellent way to keep fit. One of the greatest things about walking is the fact that you benefit from it, no matter how much or how little you walk. Of course, the more you walk the better. But, every little bit helps.