Walking To Lose Weight - Walk Your Way To A Slimmer You

Walking to lose weight is for every one, no matter what your age or physical condition.

In fact, walking is a heart-healthy workout that you can really tailor to your schedule.

All you need is just walking shoes and socks and you can walk your way to weight loss, to better health and to a slimmer you.

I've a walking program here that's based on interval workout, a guide for you to do the correct and effective ways of walking to lose weight.

1. Start with a 5-minute warm-up

Begin to walk for 5 minutes at a slow and easy pace, say 2.5 - 3.5 miles per hour, to warm up your muscle and loosen your joints.

Warm-up exercise increases the flow of blood and oxygen to your muscle, preparing it for the exercise ahead.

2. The Interval Workout

This interval workout really revs up your metabolism to burn calories.

Basically, when you walk, you'll alternate spurts of higher-intensity walking and lower-intensity walking.

You could start with 2-minutes of walking at very brisk pace (about 3.5 - 4.5 miles per hour) or jogging. The purpose of this is to get your heart rate up (to a point where you breath hard but could still hold a conversation).

After this 2-minute session, slow down to an easy walk (say you walk at 2.5 - 3.5 miles per hour) for a 2-minute session, to catch your breath and lower your hear rate.

Keep on doing the 2-minutes of very brisk walking followed by the 2-minutes of easy walking until you're done up to 20 minutes.

As your body's stronger and your endurance's better, you can start to vary the length of your intervals to increase the "difficulty" or challenge.

For example, you could lengthen the high-intensity 2-minute interval to 3 or even 4 minutes. Or you could shorten the lower-intensity 2-minute interval to 1 minute.

3. The Beginner Version

If you're a beginner walker, you could opt for 1-minute of high-intensity walking and 1-2 minutes of low-intensity walking. As you get stronger, gradually increase the high-intensity interval portion.

4. The Treadmill Version

When warming up and doing low-intensity walking, keep your treadmill flat or at a 1% incline.

During your high intensity intervals, raise the treadmill's incline anywhere from a 3% to a 12% incline.

Keep raising and lowering the treadmill's incline every 2 minutes for the 20-minute walking session.

If you're walking outdoor, just use some imagination to make your walk more interesting and fun, to help you go through the 30-minute walk session faster.

Here are 4 ways to help you out:

-Get an IPOD and listen to upbeat, power-charged music. Pick songs that make you keep stepping and walking!

-Walk with a friend or family member. You'll walk further and faster with good company

-Enjoy the surroundings and sceneries while out there walking in the open! Listen to all the sweet, soothing sounds - children's happy laughter, bird's singing, dog's barking......

-Walk a new route every now and then- don't just stick to the same old, same old route! You'll find how fast time passes when walking in a new neighborhood or new trail.

Cecelia Yap is an avid exerciser and author of the popular exercise website: perfect-body-toning.com - a web site born out of her passion which she successfully turns into a profitable business

Perhaps you have a passion or hobby you'd like to write about. Find out how you too can turn it into a profitable business like Cecelia does, here: http://www.perfect-body-toning.com/my-passion.html