Aerobics | Exercise | | Nutrition | Yoga

After WLS: Walking for Wellness

Step for step, mile for mile, walking is the best cardiovascular activity you can include as part of your weight loss surgery success story. Walking is easy, accessible, inexpensive, individual and effective. It is the gold-star sport for real people with real lives. Formerly stigmatized as cheap transportation and a senior citizens' sport it is now a credible and fashionable form of exercise. And it's been around for a long time ? anthropoids stood upright and put one foot in front of the other thousands of years ago and we haven't looked back since.

Now validated, as a vigorous fitness activity walking has become America's most popular physical activity with over 20-million people stepping out regularly. Studies abound touting the benefits of walking: including weight loss, lowered risk of stroke or heart disease and improved mental well-being. While it may sound trite, 30-minutes of walking a day will keep the doctor away.

Be sure to record your walking activity beginning on the very first day. Find a notebook, a journal, or a computer program where you can record your time and distance each day. This may sound silly the first week when you are taking 5-minute walks, but very soon you will rejoice at your progress if you have a record of where you began.

To achieve maximum benefit from this walking program, you will need a good pair of soft athletic walking shoes, preferably with ankle support. I suggest you get these prior to surgery so you don't have the "no shoes" excuse to put-off your walking program. Give them to yourself as a gift acknowledging your bravery and courage to make this positive change in your life.

Next, plan where you will walk. Raise your hand if you already own a treadmill! Mine was stored in a forgotten corner of the basement, bought with the best intention, but abandoned for a number of excuses. Get that old friend out and put it where you'll use it. most treadmills for home use are rated at a 250-pound weight limit. Fresh out of gastric bypass surgery, most of us exceed that limit. Fitness equipment manufacturers say that if the weight limit is exceeded, but at a slow pace for short duration, the treadmill should not be damaged. I say, take your chances and walk on the treadmill. It won't take long before you drop below the weight limit and in the meantime you are becoming stronger and fitter by taking short walks on the machine.

If your climate and neighborhood are equitable plan a walking route out-of-doors. Prior to surgery measure your route by the quarter mile. One determined patient I know walked one driveway further each day until she made it all the way around the block. Counting driveways is how she marked her progress. Good for her!

Do you prefer to walk in the climate-controlled mall? Plan a walking route there ? just be sure to swiftly step past the bakery and candy store. Many malls have early hours when people can gather and fitness walk without having to navigate around shoppers.

For best success sip water throughout your walk. Wear comfortable clothing for easy movement. Avoid exercising in extreme weather ? too hot or very cold.

Now equipped with great shoes, comfortable clothes, a walking route and a journal to record your progress you are ready to take your first step! Here is my plan to walk your way into a healthier life.

Kaye Bailey is a weight loss surgery success story having maintained her health and goal weight for 5+ years. An award winning journalist, she is the author and webmaster of http://www.livingafterwls.com and http://www.livingafterwls.blogspot.com Fresh & insightful content is added daily, check in often.

RELATED ARTICLES

What is the Right Home Exercise Program for You?
What do you want to get out of the exercise program?

The Benefit of Back Exercises
Back exercises are often prescribed effectively as an alternative to surgery. Doing daily back exercises can significantly reduce back pain related to a variety of common ailments. However, not every exercise is appropriate for some conditions and certain back exercises may even make the problem worse. This is why it's important to check with your doctor about which exercises will help or hinder you.

Defeating Back Pain Forever
Back pain, one of the most common physical, and debilitating ailments today, affects 70% - 80% of us at one time or another in our lives. However, as a result of the obesity epidemic, that number continues to climb. So if you are suffering or have suffered from back pain, you are not alone!

Exercise and the Time Clock
I have to admit that I sometimes find it amusing when someone knows I am a trainer and proceeds to elaborate on the hours that they spend in the gym. One example was a few years back when I was introduced to a nice young women, who proceeded to tell me that she went to the gym twice a day, an hour each time. Unless this second hour was spent in the jacuzzi or making up for lost time due to chatting with fellow gym-goers during the earlier timeslot, I would be leary. Instead of being impressed by her exuberant enthusiasm for working out, my thoughts were that one of those hours might be better spent in a counseling office. Excessive exercising is unsafe and a sign of other deep-rooted problems. So, the question remains how many ticks on the clock should pass before you head for the locker room? And what compels a person to go way overboard in their exercise routine?

Your Guide to Joining the Right Gym
Whether you want to look good on the beach this summer or loose the pounds the thanksgiving turkey puts on, a gym membership could be just the ticket.

How to Get Better Exercise Results By Improving Hydration
Water and Exercise

The Bad Workout: Some Advice for Female Bodybuilders
Bad workouts. We have all had them at some time or other. When you need to train so intensely to break the muscle down it is hardly surprising that the odd bad session occurs. After all, we are only human and we cannot be 100% consistent all the time. (I would question that when it comes to Ronnie Coleman but I am sure even he has had his bad days).

When Exercising Right Looks Wrong II
Enter any health club and a concept is very apparent, the same exercise performed again and again. Crowded floor space taken up by machines designed to make exercise easier, and a thought process called 'gym science' which involves no science at all. My last article touched on some of the thought processes or lack of thought that goes into proper exercise. With the advent of the computer exercise science has changed drastically. Particularly needle EMG (electro myo-gram) testing, this is where a hair thin needle is inserted into a muscle and its electrical and contractile properties are measured. The results of these studies have drastically changed how we exercise. Exercises that we did in the past have been proven ineffective and better exercises have been proven more efficient and effective.

Keep Exercise Journals For Real Results
Always make sure to keep a detailed training journal. By keeping a journal of your training sessions, you will have a detailed log of your every exercise you perform along with reps, sets and how much weight you lifted. It's also great to document how you felt before, during and after your training session along with any food/supplements you took before and after you trained. By keeping an exercise journal, you will have access to a wealth of information and be able to detect specific areas in your current training routine which can be changed or improved upon.

Exercise: Why YOU Should Do It
Hundreds of Thousands of Americans spend millions of dollars each year on diet pills, "magical" exercise devices, and misrepresented health and fitness products, when in all actuality a good set of dumbbells and a brisk walk may be all you need to get in better shape than you've ever been in.

Athletics and Winning
Athletics are pretty cut and dry in one regard; the goal to win. Having been in competitive athletics in a prior life I can certainly attest to that. Often however I see something that does not make a lot of sense, the need for society to treat everyone equal and to somehow over do or condemn the competitive aspect. For instance; I question an article I read in Sports Illustrated Women in February of this year about the "Agony of Defeat". The article discussed public humiliation, financial disappointment, and long-term psychological trauma? That is utter bull.

Sweating Vacation
It seems like everyone is concerned about putting on the pounds over the annual holiday season, but what about summer vacations? We spend the greater part of the new year trying to shed the weight gained from an over-indulgence of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, pies and various other sweets in order to slip into that new bikini or eliminate the gut before shedding the shirt at the beach. What happens when you reach your destination of summer frolicking? Toss your diet out the window and reward yourself with excess? Stay loyal to your eating and exercise plan? Somehow manage to find a happy medium? I was faced with these questions when I embarked on a weeklong excursion of bliss to Kona Village on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Yoga
Yoga traditionally conjures up images of long hair, loin cloths and incense burning in a darkened room with strange music playing! It had an almost cultish persona. Nowadays your gran is quite likely to tuck her Yoga mat under her arm and head on down to the local gym for an hour of Yoga and meditation. Yoga is coming out of the darkened room and is being embraced in it many forms by old and young alike.

15 Quick Tips for People Who Dont Like to Exercise
We've all had days when we don't have the energy to tie our athletic shoes, let alone bounce around in them. But exercise can give a daily blast to your mind, body, and soul.

Health Tips For Busy People: Healthy Diet & Exercise In the Office
Many women's lifestyle magazines frustrate us by providing exercise regimens for work and then adding: "You can do this exercise in your office!" What about those of us who work in a cube or other small space (with no floor space for Pilates-style stretches) that's not very private (do you really want your boss to wander by right when you're doing jumping jacks?). Even if you are cube-confined, you can maintain your health in a cube.

Sets And Reps - The High And Low Weight Workout
Big weights! Wicked pump! I always get caught between two minds whenever I hit my workout at the gym. One side of me says to lift heavy to get big and the other says that form should matter more than my weight poundage. This is an issue that used to cause me to get quite twisted every time I would prep a workout training cycle. I know each technique has its merits, so I used to be swayed back and forth never staying with either method long enough to see the results. With the low weights I get to move some decent poundage's and my ego gets gratified but alas, there is no killer pump. When I stick to the perfect form method with lighter weights I get great pumps but I never feel like I am really working hard enough to get anywhere because my weights are so light. So in my search for the perfect weight workout, I decided to combine the two methods and get the best of both worlds.

The Degradation of Fitness Science
The world and our selves evolve and exist in a cyclic fashion; good times and bad? ups and downs? we experience changes that seem to repeat, including everyday cycles of sleep-wake and cell regeneration. History is a broad example of cycles, whereby we enter the "dark ages" followed by an "age of enlightenment." We now are in an irrational dark age of fitness. Irrational is an ideal term to describe a method of exercise considered dangerous, impractical, unproved (yet implemented when other proven methods exist) and irrelevant (i.e., claiming to do something that cannot be achieved). Below is such an example.

Speed Training With Intensity - Bound To Get Faster
Bounding can be a great addition to your high intensity workouts - and it's essential to getting faster.

Lance Armstrongs Training Tactics: #1 Rule - Greatness Needs NO Explanation!
Great endurance racers will tell you "Leave your egos at the starting gates." One of the hardest things in any race, especially the Tour De France that you will never notice is one's ability to tame the ego. Lance is a self proclaimed "data junkie" when it comes to his training tactics. Even though the Tour is over 2300 miles and takes three weeks to ride, every hill, every mile and every rotation of his pedals are calculated ahead of time. But, what happens during the race if not disciplined in the off season can ruin the best of training tactics.

Doing vs. Performing: The Difference Between Exercising and Getting Results
Back when I was young and living on my parents' farm, there always seemed to be plenty of tasks that were reserved for the low man on the totem pole. And you guessed it. That low man was me. Picking up and piling sticks seemed to be one of my dad's favorite tasks for me, and quite frankly, it was one of my least desired jobs to do. Funny how that works. Anyway, every time my dad would tell me to go out and complete one of these undesirable tasks, I would respond with the requisite whining, complaining, and carrying-on that usually comes from a young person who is having to do something he/she doesn't want to do. Nonetheless, I would slump off and begin my task, usually in a half-assed manner. Then I would rush in and tell my dad I had completed my task. He would go out, check it, and 9 times out of 10, he would make me go back and redo, complete, or what-have-you some of aspect of my job. He would always tell me, "It is much easier to do it right the first time." This is a lesson that did not sink in until some years later. Now, however, I fully embrace my father's philosophy, in part, because on a daily basis I see the same issues/attitudes I had as a young person showing up in how people approach their exercise programs.

Home | Site Map