Get Fit for Walking Tips
I know, I say you have to walk 45 minutes at a time in my Walking for Weight Loss article, but what if you can barely make it from your chair to your kitchen. Here are my get fit for walking tips and stories to help you get started.
My Story
When I first started walking, I weighed 256 lbs and could barely make it up a flight of stairs. My goal was to hike mountains with b level local hikers. I knew I couldn’t do an hour of walking a day. So I found a way to build up my body.
I started with a couple ten minute walks a day around my property. Within a short time, I was up to 6 ten minute walks throughout the day. Then within that first month, as I headed out for my morning walk, I knew I had it and I did my first sixty-minute walk. It felt so good. I even did the other 5 ten minute walks that day. It was only then that I hit my first mountain trail alone, not quite ready for the hard hike, but determined.
Miracle Jan’s Story
Jan was one of my first clients. She was chair-bound with MS and had lost all hope of ever regaining her mobility. She was about to order a wheel-chair and give up.
Instead, she joined us. Walking was mandatory and she was determined. She grabbed her cane, pulled herself up, and walked from her chair to the kitchen, and then through her dining room and back to her chair. It was exhausting. Yet, she got up later in the day and did it again.
She kept doing that short walk every day multiple times. After a month and a half of losing weight and doing her house walk, she walked a 5K with her cane. 4 months later, she did a 10k without a cane. We were doing an anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant diet and she lost weight fast, but the walking was all about push and determination.
What do You Need to Do?
The answer? Get started and push daily
When women start with me, they have bad ankles, knees, arthritis, you name it. There are always issues with getting started walking.
The most important thing you have to do is start. Start like Jan. A few very short walks a day. That will help you build up to where you want to go. But if you don’t get up, if you don’t make yourself take those first steps, you will never get walking.
Most dieters are all or nothing types. Well, that doesn’t work when you can barely get up. You have to let go of the idea that if you can’t do 45 minutes your first time out it isn’t worth it. It is. 3 minutes of walking is awesome. 5 is even better. 10, 15, 20, whatever you can do. It counts, maybe not for weight loss so much, but for getting your body moving.
As you get older, bone density is so important. Walking is a weight-bearing exercise and strengthens bones.
Start slow, if you have to, and be proud of yourself.
Push Yourself a Little Bit Everyday
That’s right. If you want to get fit, push yourself daily. But don’t push so hard you end up hurting yourself. Push a little each day. Walk for 1 more minute, or to the next light pole. Every moment you do more than the day before, the faster you will get fit for walking for weight loss.
When I hit that mountain. I could barely make it up the first hill never mind the whole mountain. So each day I would force myself to push one more rock or corner before stopping where I had stopped the day before.
I had the luxury at the time to spend all day on that mountain. So each day regardless of how many times I had to stop, or how long it took, I reached the top of the mountain. It took tears, humiliation and lots of water. I was in my 40s. Women in their 80s with no water would pass by me and say, “keep going deary, you can do it.” I was sure my lungs would explode. They would then pass me again as they came down the mountain. It was brutal. But I eventually got up that mountain in one nonstop trek. The next day I started on a bigger harder mountain and relived all the tears and humiliation of the first, until that day it all felt easy.
When you want something, you have to push yourself to get it
Walking for weight loss is no different. Walking for health too.
I tell everyone, get fit for walking then use it as a tool for gaining health and for weight loss. I believe it’s the number one thing we should do to improve our lives.
Never push past what you can do safely. But always push a little each day and never give up on yourself. Bodies are amazing. Start slow and give your’s time to adapt and rebuild. You will be surprised how far you can go and how fit you can become.
Recommendations from Carlene
Tim Anderson’s Book Pressing Reset, a reboot of his Original Strength Book
Then I recommend Tim Anderson’s book, Pressing Reset Original Strength Reloaded.
Chemo and Radiation had horrible consequences on my muscles, coordination & balance. I went from strong hiker to barely able to get out of bed. I feared I would lose use of my legs and was devastated.
A friend who had a catastrophic muscle decline from lupus recommended the Original Strength book to me. Pressing Reset is the updated version.
Coming back physically still takes work. It wasn’t always easy. I had big doubts and shed many tears as I rebuilt my body. This book was a godsend. It didn’t give complete recovery. That took more hard work on my part, but it gave me the confidence to push through.
The exercises in this book helped my friend and then me recover our body and brain connections while strengthening our muscles.
The book is $9.99 on Kindle. Or $14.99 for the paperback. Tim Anderson has lots of youTube videos, check them out, but get the book. The book is better as most the videos are one exercise at a time. Either way, check it out. It’s wonderful for those who have lost body confidence.