Walking for Weight Loss

Beginning a routine of regular walking is a fabulous way to quickly lose weight, boost your mood and tone your body. Here's Don Cowan's story. He lost 58 pounds in three months due to his intense walking schedule. He didn't even need to bother with a diet. The pounds just slipped off.

His is my personal favorite walking story at Walker's Warehouse. Check out their site for more inspirational stories about walking and weight loss. Cowen's comments were published a couple of years ago;

I lost my job last year and was not having any luck in finding another one. I became depressed I and starting eating a lot around October last year. By Jan. 27th of this year I had gained 68 lbs, I weighed a whopping 288lbs !!!!! I was so disgusted with myself. I started the very next day to walk. I barely was able to get in a mile the first day. I slowly increased my distance everyday challenging myself to go a little further. Now it is 3 months later and I have lost 58 lbs !!!! I am up to 8 miles per day in about 2 hours time. The weight just seemed to be falling off. I am within 10 lbs of my goal, but I never plan to stop walking. Not only are there physical benefits, but the emotional, mental benefits are absolutely amazing. You can bet that I will be a lot more confident at that next job interview. I am 51 years old, so it is never too late to start walking. My neighbors who have seen me out on the roads tell me what an inspiration I have been to them. I urge anyone who wants to lose weight and improve their mental capacity to start walking. They will never regret it. Also, the exercise curbed my appetite so I lost weight without having to think about dieting.

Best Pedometers for Walking

Pedometers can be a useful tool for weight loss. If you've set yourself a fitness goal via walking so many miles per week, a pedometer can be very helpful in keeping you motivated and on track.

They've really come down in price over the past couple of years. You can now buy an excellent pedometer for about $20. The one shown here is the most popular and highest ranked pedometer on Amazon : Omron HJ112 Pedometer It's on sale now for $22 (from a regular price of $39).

Over 100 people have written reviews about this pedometer at Amazon. And the verdict is quite unanimous that it's the best one on the market right now. Here's a couple of people's comments:

If you are wondering whether you want a pedometer, let me add my vigorous "yes". Wearing a pedometer has a way of making you parse every step you take as exercise....even walking down the hall to ask an officemate a question raises your step count just a bit, and soon enough you will be raising your ambitions to 10,000 steps a day or even more without needing to make a production over going to the gym. If you are wondering "which pedometer," I'll add my pitch for this nifty little Omron. My last pedometer: inaccurate, physically uncomfortable, impossible to wear with a dress, broke after 2 months. My Omron: accurate, comfortable clip, even works if I just stick it in a pocket or purse, have dropped it frequently to no ill effects. Best of all, it has quite sophisticated features: it tracks not only steps, miles, and calories, but "aerobic steps" - if you keep walking for 10 minutes or more it counts as aerobic - it is even smart enough to let you pause for up to a minute and still count subsequent steps as aerobic. Finally, it has a 7-day memory that allows you to track all these features back a whole week so you can see your improvements. I can't say enough about this product. I know they call it "premium" but for less than the cost of a couple of weeks at a gym, you'll have a permanent and genuinely practical exercise system. It is the best fitness value of any kind on the market.

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After using, being dissatisfied with, and discarding a half dozen or so other pedometers, I can honestly say that the Omron is the best of the bunch. The setup is simple, it's incredibly rugged (I've dropped it on the pavement more times than I can remember), and its sensitivity is unmatched by any pedometer I've used before. A major advantage is that it records steps taken, calories, etc., even when tucked inside a pocket of your clothing or inside your purse (assuming you carry a purse)...It has a lot of useful features (including the seven day memory for number of steps taken, calorie count, distance). I am totally pleased with this product and would recommend it to anyone.

Natural Cures for Diabetes

Forbes Magazine reviewed a very encouraging report today about how the average person can quickly cure their type 2 diabetes and reverse high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

Researchers put thirty overweight and obese men on a high-fiber diet and asked them to exercise for 45 to 60 minutes a day. Within just three weeks half the men had reversed their type 2 diabetes and other risk factors including high cholesterol, high blood pressure and insulin resistance.

This is an amazingly short time period! Most people think it would take much longer to improve your health so significantly.

The men were not restricted in how much they ate. They were allowed to eat as many vegetables, fruits and whole grains as they wanted so they weren't left feeling hungry. The diet was developed by the Pritkin Longevity Center and consists of eating 65 to 70 percent complex carbohydrates (vegetables, fruits and whole grains), 15 to 20 percent protein (legumes, nuts, soy and some fish and poultry) and 12 to 15 percent fat - restricted to less than half from saturated fat.

The exercise consisted of walking on a treadmill for 45 to 60 minutes a day.

Participants lost an average of two to three pounds per week over the course of three weeks. All were still overweight or obese at the end of this period, however their heart health improved dramatically.

This is very encouraging news for anyone who's been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol and who is willing to make serious life style changes to quickly reverse these illnesses.