Weight Loss Easy Exercise - Stretching and Walking

Today we are talking about effective, easy exercise you can do and keep doing. But first, let's recap and check in with steps you should already be working on for successful weight loss.

Here you decided start to track your weight and face reality

Weight Loss Let's Pretend

• Do you have a way to track your weight now?
• Do you know how long it will take you to get to your goal weight?
• Are you determined to stay focused on health and weight loss until you get there?

These are important aspects for this long term project. I hope you are working these ideas a bit each day.

Here you found out what your current BMI is and took steps to get over excuses for losing weight

Yes, You CAN Lose Weight!

Coming to terms with obesity and why we are obese is a first step in overcoming it. When I coach people one-on-one, I tell them I believe in them until they can believe in themselves. I know that if you take daily, consistent action, you will lose weight. The more effective the action, the faster the weight will come off.

If instead you ignore the problem and do nothing, the weight will just keep going up. One of the key moments in my weight loss journey was when one of my doctors casually mentioned that he did not have to worry about geriatrics and obesity because his fat patients all died before they got old.

Take your first steps to successful weight loss here

Weight Loss - Let’s Get Started Today

• Have you started to track your food intake?
• How is that going?
• What patterns are you seeing?

In this post, we found how to easily measure portions of food.

Weight Loss Portion Sizes and Nutrition

• Have you been looking at portion sizes with your own food?
• What are you seeing in what you eat?
• What portions are too big?
• What portions are too small?

Here we talked about the idea of adding nutrition to what you do eat; not just giving yourself a list of "No."

Weight Loss Bad Ideas

If I was coaching you directly, we would be going over these steps every day. Since you are doing this on your own with help of these blog posts, it is up to you to hold yourself accountable and not let up. Weight loss from a place of obesity is a long haul. You did not gain weight in one day, but your daily habits are what determine the future. Taking a look at what is happening now needs to be done daily or you will fall back into your old ways.

On to today's topic of easy exercise!

When I started working with a fitness trainer, I was walking for over one hour a day and sometimes up to two hours. This was a big time commitment, not fun, and not effective. I just kept walking more, hurting more, and not losing weight. His advice to me was:

"Stop that incessant walking!"

Many obese people start walking when they want to lose weight. Walking is a great exercise; it can be done anywhere and can be as easy or hard as you want it to be. The problem for beginning walkers is that certain muscles get stronger and tighter as you walk and may cause pain and stiffness. The solution is stretching more than walking so you can heal and lengthen the muscles that you use when walking.

His advice and what I still do before and after fitness walking

• stretch at least 20 minutes before a fitness walk
• stretch at least 20 minutes after a fitness walk

This was revolutionary for me and made a huge difference in my results. The walks themselves are now no longer than 20-40 minutes and I do much better on them.

Stretching to Warm up

You can use stretching to warm up before walking, but stretching will also warm you up at any time of the day. You can stretch first thing in the morning while still in bed to loosen up your stiff muscles that haven’t moved all night. You can stretch during the day, whenever you are still or sore or just need to clear your head.

Starting to stretch in your everyday life will improve your health and overall general feelings of pain associated with obesity. By warming up you are preparing your body for upcoming exercise and daily activity. Stretching your muscles prepares you for short or long, hard or easy, workouts of youy choice anytime day or night.

I have already shown you this poster about stretching in bed and here it is again. It is much easier to lay down in bed than to try to get up and down off a hard floor.

Please try to do this stretching at least in the morning and at night.

Stretching for Pain Management

Many obese people have pain issues unrelated to exercise. Life is painful when you are obese; trying to fit into clothes, chairs, cars, and other daily obstacles. Stretching can help ease pain, and make everything else you do easier. By stretching muscles that are cramping, sore, and tense, you will have more blood flow during and after a stretch. Increasing the blood flow allows more oxygen to be carried in and relieves tension and pain by gently using the sore areas. This gentle stretching works muscles that have been inactive, allowing them to be more effective when you are walking or doing any other activity.

Sometimes the act of walking causes pain in joints that aren’t used to so much activity. Obese people generally avoid walking, park near entrances of stores, and avoid sports and activities. By the time you do decide to walk, the weight, combined with the lack of usage, creates sore muscles – even after a very short walk.

Stretching can relieve the pain and help you do better with your walking plan. By repeating this cycle over and over again, improvement in overall general wellness will appear and you will soon increase the distance you walk in the same amount of time. Each day will be better than the last.

Have you heard of the cat and cow moves? This is a concept of yoga and often shown by getting down onto the floor. Don't do that! I love to do both of these moves to stretch out my back, shoulders, neck and legs, but I do them leaning over and hanging on to a table, bed or chair, not down on the floor

You can find many videos of the cat and cow standing, but none of people using a platform for their arms when doing this move. But I like this one so you can see the range of motion you are going for. Just pretend this man has a table in front of him.

So now it is time to walk! Again, I will give you some advice from my fitness trainer. Please watch this short video and you can see some of Ho Chi Minh City traffic at the same time.

The idea here is to stop pounding, pounding, pounding on pavement, and instead to give your joints a nice workout. Pay attention to what I said about working out your feet and legs as you walk.

That's it for today. Be kind to yourself and keep going. No one is going to save you but you. I am here to help, but you are the key to your weight loss success.

If you want input from me I'm here!

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