Walking I Believe That Walking

Walking

I believe that walking is an excellent form of exercise and have been pursuing this activity for just one month. My goals related directly to walking performance include maintaining walking time, improving distance, building up speed and following a more progressive schedule. Indirectly, I would like to achieve weight loss as well as a reduction in stress through my walking class. Already, I am achieving many of my goals, but know that I can do even better because walking is so easy and fun.

I walk for one hour a session, not counting my five-minute warm up where I walk slowly and performing some simple stretches. This is the same time as I started out with. Although I would like to increase my walking time and believe that I could easily do so, my busy daily schedule does not permit me to allocate more time to this activity. Therefore, during the hour walk, I am currently focusing on increasing my speed, and, thus distance, as well as adding to my current walking schedule rather than allocating more time to the walk.

My walking distance is currently four miles during my hour long walk. I am pleased that I have increased my walking distance one mile over what I started out at just one month ago. However, I believe my walking distance is only average and wish to increase this by another half mile over the next month. Also, because of my busy schedule, my goal is to purchase a pedometer and to try to increase the total number of steps I take during the one hour walk as well as during the entire day. I believe the pedometer may allow me to better take advantage of any spare time I may have throughout the day, even if only for a few minutes, to increase the total amount of walking activity.

I currently walk 15 minute miles. This is an improvement of my approximately 20 minute miles I began my program with. Now, I am ready to move up to my next goal of about a 13 minute mile. I believe that walking on a consistent basis (see schedule discussed below) will continue to help me increase my walking speed. I also have several other plans to build endurance. One technique I will try is walking in intervals. I will walk at my usual pace for around five minutes and then I'll pick up my pace for another minute, then fall back to my usual pace for another five minutes. I will try to increase the amount of time I spend walking at the quicker pace until I can continuously build on my total walking time. I will also take advantage of my pedometer to count steps during my hour long walk and to try to increase steps during each walking routine. Further, I plan on listening to aerobic music and to try walking with other members in the walking class who I know walk at a faster pace than I do. I believe all of these techniques will help me increase my level of motivation.

My walking schedule started out with a walk four times a week. I have since added one day and my new goal is to try to walk every single day. As mentioned before, I believe consistency is a key to endurance. To maintain a consistent schedule, I take my walking class first thing every morning so that other activities are less likely to interfere with my time to walk. However, sometimes I am up late studying and do not always get up in time for my morning walks. I believe that adding the new goal to walk every day will help compensate for any times that I miss due to studies.

One of the major reasons why I started my walking program was to lose weight. In this respect, I am very disappointed because I am the very same weight as when I started the program. On a positive note, at least I haven't gained any additional weight. Reviewing estimates of calories burned during walking, I believe I burn around 300 calories for my four mile walk or about 1200 calories per week since I walk four times a week. This should allow me to lose about a pound a month. However, I realize that diet also plays a large factor in weight loss and that I need to make sure I am not consuming extra calories now that I am walking. I expect that my plan to increase my speed and distance as well as to implementing intervals to build endurance will help me burn more calories and may increase my metabolism as well so that my body becomes more efficient in burning calories. I will also try to add more walking on inclines to help me burn additional calories.