Author - Dr. Nitin Gupte

Why Walking Is The Best Weight Loss Exercise At Home!

Today the pandemic has forced millions of people all over the world to work from home.

And many of them are working more than twelve hours a day.

Naturally  they are leading a very sedentary life.

With the result, many have ended up gaining a lot of weight during the pandemic.

And many of them have not even visited their doctors for their regular check up for conditions like  hypertension, diabetes, or even heart disease, for the fear of getting infected.

And most people believe that they have to take up heavy strength training exercises to lose weight.

But they have to go to gyms to do them.

Also one needs to wear a mask and maintain distance from others to prevent getting infected and exercising with a mask on can be dangerous as it causes hypoxia when the body actually demands more oxygen.

And many gyms are air conditioned and lack ventilation.

That increases the chances of getting infected with Covid.

And they believe that home exercises cannot help them to lose weight!

That isn’t true at all!

Researchers have long known that cardiovascular exercise helps us lose weight and lowers our blood pressure, blood sugar, total cholesterol and the bad cholesterol, the LDL cholesterol and triglycerides and increases our good cholesterol, the HDL cholesterol.

Raised levels of total cholesterol and LDL or low density lipid cholesterol and triglycerides lead to clot formation in the coronary arteries causing blockages in them causing heart disease.

Healthy levels of HDL or high density lipid cholesterol clears the clots from the coronary arteries and protects us from heart diseases.

Brisk walking, jogging, running, dancing, aerobics, working out on treadmill and elliptical trainers, cycling and swimming are cardiovascular exercises.

Many people believe that only heavy strength training exercises can help them lose weight and for that they have to go to gyms.

And most people can buy some free weights and keep them at home, but few can have gym machines at home.

Many people also believe that floor exercises like squats, lunges, sit ups, crunches or yoga can help them lose weight and they can do these at home.

But let us compare the calories burned in walking, strength training and floor exercises.

Walking can burn between 250 to 350, even 400 calories if truly brisk, strength training 180 to 250 calories and floor exercises 120 to 180 calories per hour.

And we can easily walk for one, one and half or two hours spread over the day, at our convenience.

You can hardly do more than an hour of strength training or floor exercises, and those too not without breaks, so the real time actually comes down below one hour.

Most people under my care walk 8 to 10 km or more, daily, effortlessly once they get fit!

These people tend to burn 400 to 500 calories daily and lose weight happily while getting fit and healthy.

Gaining a little extra muscle weight due to strength training helps improve metabolism and helps us burn a few extra calories day long, but still they are not on par with what you can burn in cardiovascular exercises.

And benefits of brisk walking are the same as those of high intensity cardiovascular exercises like running, dancing, aerobics, working out on treadmill and elliptical trainers, cycling and swimming.

So you can see how effective walking can be even at home!

This means walking can make you slim, fit and healthy without the risk of injuries.

And there is no need of visiting a gym, a trainer or any special equipment.

There is no need to learn any new technique.

All you need is to wear proper shoes and begin to walk.

US Government guidelines recommend 150 minutes of ‘moderate’ exercise or 75 minutes of ‘vigorous’ exercise each week. Walking 100 steps a minute constitutes moderate exercise while 130 steps a minute constitutes vigorous exercise. In terms of distance covered per hour, 4.4 km/hour constitutes moderate exercise while 5.7 km/hour constitutes vigorous exercise.

Researchers have found that most people walk at over a hundred steps per minute when asked to walk at their comfortable pace, that is they already walk at moderate pace. So taking them a step ahead at a time, to 110, 120 and 130 steps per minute is not very difficult.

So the best plan is to begin walking regularly at home at your normal, comfortable pace and time and increase pace and time as you get fitter. In fact, your speed and distance increase automatically as your fitness improves!

And you can walk within small distances of twenty feet or so.

You can also walk between two rooms or through more rooms.

If there isn’t space enough to walk you can march in one place.

Soon your energy levels and mood improve, and you start enjoying walking at home. You look healthier and your skin starts glowing with the new found health.

You can soon walk for thirty to forty-five minutes twice a day consistently very much within your home, it gives you better metabolic rate than walking once day.

Once you get fitter, you can also jog on the spot at home if there is not enough space, or slow run if there is enough space. This will be a higher intensity exercise.

You can also use a motorised treadmill or an elliptical cross trainer or an exercise bike at home.

In short, walking is the magical exercise that can make you slim and healthy without the fear of injuries. And you must walk even if you are slim!

Weight loss of every four kg has been shown to reduce systolic blood pressure by 6.25 mm and diastolic blood pressure by 4 mm. So you can see how valuable the weight loss is.

Cardiovascular exercise including walking has also been shown to improve ventricular mass and wall thickness, reduce arterial stiffness and improve endothelial function.

Endothelium is the innermost lining of the arterial walls.

The endothelium produces small amounts of nitric oxide which keeps the endothelium smooth and slippery, allowing the blood to flow smoothly and preventing inflammation of the endothelium and clot formation by white cells and platelets, by preventing them from attaching to it.

It also relaxes the smooth muscle cells of the middle layer of the arterial wall, below the endothelium, preventing their spasms and keeping arteries open.

It means walking at home can keep your coronary arteries healthy.

In simple words, cardiovascular exercise including walking help us lose weight, lowers our blood pressure, sugar, cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and triglycerides and improves our HDL cholesterol levels and keeps our arteries healthy and protects us from heart attacks and strokes!

And we can walk, jog or slow run to get slim, fit and heart healthy, very much at home!

Also read the articles the ‘Science Of Exercise’, ‘Walking To Be Slim And Healthy’ and the ‘The Safest Exercise In The World’ on this website.

Walking Is The Safest Exercise For All Ages!

Today millions of people all over the world are obese and most of them are struggling to lose weight by either starving under various treatments or working out heavily till they are badly injured.

We have known for a long time that cardiovascular exercises lower your weight, blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, low-density lipid cholesterol or LDL cholesterol, and triglycerides.

They also raise your good high-density lipid cholesterol or HDL cholesterol.

Experts say that regular strength training exercises also help lower blood pressure and sugar.

But in high-intensity strength training exercises, especially if people hold their breaths when straining to lift heavy weights, and people naturally do that, there could be a sudden spike in their blood pressures, which could sometimes even be fatal!

And that is the reason why experts recommend higher repetitions with lower weights than fewer repetitions with heavyweights.

And they also recommend that people with uncontrolled hypertension should be cautious while lifting heavyweights.

Doing strength training exercises without a well-trained instructor most often leads to injuries than lowering blood pressure and sugar.

And for that, you have to visit gyms regularly.

But strength training lifelong in gyms is not possible for most Indians.

And injuries are common in gym-goers in India.

Also let us compare the calories burned in walking, strength training and floor exercises.

Walking can burn between 250 to 350, even 400 calories if truly brisk, strength training 180 to 250 calories and floor exercises 120 to 180 calories per hour.

And we can easily walk for one, one and half or two hours spread over the day, at our convenience.

You can hardly do more than an hour of strength training or floor exercises, and those too not without breaks, so the real time actually comes down below one hour.

Most people under my care walk 8 to 10 km or more, daily, effortlessly once they get fit!

These people tend to burn 400 to 500 calories daily and lose weight happily while getting fit and healthy.

Gaining a little extra muscle weight due to strength training helps improve metabolism and helps us burn a few extra calories day long, but still they are not on par with what you can burn in cardiovascular exercises.

And average gym goer who spares an hour or an hour and half in a gym daily, is hardly expected to gain more than a kg or two of muscles over a period of months , ladies even less than men.

The best exercise for almost everyone, of all ages, in most circumstances, is walking!

You don’t need any trainers or specialized equipment, or to visit gyms to walk.

And it is good enough to not only lose weight effectively but also to get optimally healthy!

All you need is proper clothes and appropriate walking shoes. And the desire and motivation to walk!

And you don’t need special training or technique to walk.

All you need is to wear good walking shoes and begin to walk!

US Government guidelines recommend 150 minutes of ‘moderate’ exercise or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise each week. Walking 100 steps a minute constitutes moderate exercise while 130 steps a minute constitutes vigorous exercise. In terms of distance covered per hour, 4.4 km/hour constitutes moderate exercise while 5.7 km/hour constitutes vigorous exercise.

Researchers have found that most people walk at over a hundred steps per minute when asked to walk at their comfortable pace, that is they already walk at a moderate pace. So taking them a step ahead at a time, to 110, 120, and 130 steps per minute is not very difficult.

So the best plan is to begin walking regularly at your normal, comfortable pace and time and increase pace and time as you get fitter. In fact, your speed and distance increase automatically as your fitness improves!

Here is a note of caution, when you walk at 120 or 130 steps per minute, you are likely to suffer from knee pain, if the muscles around the knees are not strong enough. That is the reason why you ought to take up knee strengthening exercises along with your walks.

If you are very unfit, even walking on the spot at home (like marching) for as little as five minutes at a time is good enough. Do it twice a day, morning and evening, and add one session of five minutes both times of the day every few days, as you get fitter and stronger. Gradually build it up to thirty minutes in the morning and thirty in the evening, either at home or outside. You gather pace as you get more and more fit. And it all happens naturally, you don’t have to do it intentionally.

Your energy levels and mood improve within days, and you start enjoying walking. You look healthier and your skin starts glowing with the newfound health.

If you are already walking, walk for thirty to forty-five minutes twice a day consistently, it gives you a better metabolic rate than walking once a day.

You can also use a motorized treadmill for walking.

Walking lowers your bad, low-density lipid (LDL) cholesterol, which leads to heart disease, increases your good, high-density lipid (HDL) cholesterol, which helps ward off heart disease, lowers blood pressure and blood sugar, protecting you from diabetes and heart disease.

The benefits of brisk walking are the same as that of high-intensity cardiovascular exercises like running or dancing or aerobics or cycling. Plus it ensures against injuries.

In short, walking is a magical exercise that can make you slim and healthy without the fear of injuries. And you must walk even if you are slim!

Beginning to exercise alone can bring down your blood pressure by 3.5 and 2.0 mm respectively.

Shifting from high fat, high sugar, low fiber diet to low fat, low sugar, high fiber diet brings down your systolic blood pressure by 5.5 mm and diastolic blood pressure by 3.0 mm Hg.

Weight loss of every four kg has been shown to reduce systolic blood pressure by 6.25 mm and diastolic blood pressure by 4 mm.

Cardiovascular exercise including walking has also been shown to improve ventricular mass and wall thickness, reduce arterial stiffness and improve endothelial function.

The endothelium is the innermost lining of the arterial walls.

The endothelium produces small amounts of nitric oxide which keeps the endothelium smooth and slippery, allowing the blood to flow smoothly and preventing inflammation of the endothelium and clot formation by white cells and platelets, by preventing them from attaching to it.

It also relaxes the smooth muscle cells of the middle layer of the arterial wall, below the endothelium, preventing their spasms and keeping arteries open.

In simple words, cardiovascular exercise including walking keeps our arteries healthy and protects us from heart attacks and strokes!

Also, read the articles ‘Science Of Exercise’ and ‘Walking To Be Slim And Healthy’ on this website.

Losing The Dangerous Belly Fat Assuredly!

Most people want to lose their paunch or belly fat because it is ugly and causes discomfort and inconvenience in common daily activities requiring bending down to pick up anything from the floor or tying the shoelaces.

What they don’t know is that it is more lethal than the excess fat anywhere else in the body!

It can cause hypertension, diabetes, heart disease and strokes, PCOD, breast cancers and cholecystitis and many more chronic diseases!

But it is no different from any other fat in your body in that it too can be knocked off as assuredly as any other fat in the body, only if you knew how!

It can be done any time you wish, doesn’t matter how long you have had it.

To understand this, you have to understand the following facts.

How do we gain fat?

We gain fat when we eat more calories than we burn in twenty-four hours. The unused calories are converted into fat and stored away in the body in different places, for future use.

Where does the body store the extra fat?

The body stores the excess fat in fat cells in different fat depots all over the body, a little more in some places than others, tummy, hips, thighs, chest, back, and arms being the more preferred places.

Different people store their excess fat in different places. Generally, men tend to store more fat in the upper body, above the waist, while ladies tend to store more fat in the lower body, below the waist. The former is called the ‘apple-shaped’ or upper body obesity and the latter the ‘pear-shaped’ or lower body obesity’.

How do we lose fat?

When we eat fewer calories than we burn in twenty-four hours, we draw the additional calories from the excess fat that we had stored up previously exactly for such shortfalls and the fat store reduces. This means we lose some of the stored fat and our weight drops proportionately.

This fat loss is generalized, that is we use up some fat from fat stores from all over the body.

So how do we lose belly fat?

If we burn more calories than we eat and have more fat in your belly, more fat will be lost from the belly area than in other areas, but since there is more fat in the belly, it will take some time to lose all of it. So you have to be patient.

How can we burn more calories?

Walking, jogging, running, swimming, cycling, dancing, in short, cardiovascular exercises burn more calories than floor exercises or working out with weights, that is strength training.

Do abdominal exercises help burn abdominal fat?

No. Abdominal exercises like ‘sit-ups’ and ‘crunches’ can tone up the abdominal wall, but they can’t selectively burn the excess fat in the abdomen. Plus they burn fewer calories than the cardiovascular exercises.

And excessive ‘sit ups’ and crunches can cause injuries like muscle tears, hernias, and prolapsed disks.

Is belly fat bad?

Presence of excess abdominal fat leads to hypertension, high blood sugar, high levels of total cholesterol and low density lipid (LDL) cholesterol and triglycerides and it also lowers the good cholesterol, the high density lipid (HDL) cholesterol, leading to diabetes, heart disease and strokes.

Presence of abdominal obesity increases the incidence of PCOD, breast cancer and cholecystitis in women.

It is also associated with other chronic diseases and some other cancers.

It also invites hernias and back problems by causing an abnormal drag on the vertebral column.

Corona kills the pot-bellied obese easier than slim and fit people.

So how can we lose our belly fat assuredly?

The simplest way to lose our belly fat, or in fact, excess fat anywhere in our body and our excess weight is to eat our own healthy, normal, everyday food a little better balanced nutritionally and sensibly and at least walk regularly.

Don’t fall for very-low-calorie diets sold under the garb of so-called magic slimming machines or medicines or meal replacement shakes or ‘revolutionary’ diets sold by commercial slimming treatments or take up mindless exercises and protein supplements.

Don’t waste your time doing hundreds of ‘sit ups’ and crunches and risk getting injured.

Also read the articles ’Basics Of Nutrition’, ‘Designing A Healthy Weight Loss Food Plan’, and ‘Simple Steps To Slimming’ on this website.