How Does Walking Help To Keep Me Fit?

Exercising regularly is beneficial to our health. Daily exercise not only keeps you fit, it boosts your mood, increases flexibility, and safeguards your health. One of the perfect and effective ways is to get walking.

Does walking help your fitness level?

Walking is not to be underestimated as the right way of keeping fit. Walking can indeed keep you fit, but you need to do the right amount of walking. A daily walk, even if it’s just a 20-minute stroll to the shops, can help to keep you active and, if you walk with friends, it can give your social life a boost, too.

Walking is an enjoyable activity with excellent health and anti-aging benefits. We cannot control our aging process, but we can take steps to lower the risk of heart disease. Besides preventing heart disease, regular walking helps us to stay fit and healthy, improves the health of our immune system and reduces the risk of several diseases such as heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and some types of cancer that are more common in older people and can improve our mental outlook on life. Walking is a flexible exercise that can be a mild or moderate activity. It’s also a very convenient form of exercise for old and young people. Exercising regularly helps to keep you healthy over 50 and keep you fit.

How Walking Can Improve Your Health

Walking helps with weight loss

Taking regular exercise is especially important as we get older and our metabolism slows down, making us more likely to put on weight.

The key to losing weight is to use up more energy that we take in, and a daily walk can help to increase metabolism and burn off some of that extra fat.

The number of people who are overweight or obese is rising. The latest Health Survey for the United States (2017) showed the following groups as overweight:

• 70% of men aged 65 to 85

• More than 75% of women aged 64 to 85.

Helps to keep the heart healthy

Research published by the American Heart Association in 2017 on the heart health of over 40,000 people over five years revealed that those who regularly took a brisk walk cut their risk of heart disease by 20%. Brisk walking can help to keep your heart healthy by increasing your heart rate. Walking is also better at reducing your risk of high cholesterol and high blood pressure in the long-term.

Reduce the risk of diabetes

Research has made it known that over the last decade, there are millions of people living with diabetes. In most cases are Type 2 diabetes, which is more likely to affect adults and those who are overweight.  However, Studies have shown that a daily 30-minute walk and a healthy diet can reduce your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by up to 65% and improve your blood sugar control.

Help to strengthen your bones

A natural aging process is the loss of bone density. It is essential to exercise regularly to improve bone density and strength. The work you put in your health becomes even more important after the age of 35 when bones start to become weaker. Walking can help to retain bone mass, strengthen bones, and reduce the risk of osteoporosis, which makes bones brittle and more likely to break.

Improve your mood and mental well being

Regular exercise is known to improve your mental health and increase the mood of prosperity, and can as well even help to relieve depression, stress or anxiety because your body releases serotonin (the happy hormone).

Walking can also be a social activity when done in a group or with friends, so it can help to tackle feelings of loneliness.

How Much Exercise Do You Need?

Just walking up the road to buy a newspaper simply won’t cut it. Studies have found that if you want to make a difference to your fitness levels and to get the health benefits of walking, the average person should try to walk for at least 30 minutes as briskly as you can a day for five days a week.

Don’t be put off if this seems a lot. You can break it down into 15-minute blocks and if you have any medical condition, check with your doctor before starting any new exercise program of physical activity.

You can slow down aging and improve your fitness over age 50 by doing simple exercise such as walking. Walking will help keep you fit, healthy and looking young without overtaxing your body.

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