The Senior Walking Fitness Blog

Hello Everybody,

Jogging is one of the best ways to help fat loss. As we know to lose weight you must burn more calories or eat less than you are at present. Losing weight without exercise is hard because you must eat a lot less food. The ideal plan is to eat less and exercise more. To lose 1 pound a week you must burn off about 500 calories a day more than you are eating to maintain your present weight. Exercise is a good way of burning those calories. To put 500 calories into context assume that a bar of chocolate is about 250 calories and a Starbucks café latte with semi skimmed milk will be about 280 calories. So there goes your morning snack if you decide to lose weight by diet alone. I would suggest a more healthy morning snack anyway, for even if you do take exercise you may be struggling to lose that pound or so a week if you carry on eating high calorie snacks.

 If you want to lose more weight in a week it is just a matter of numbers – burn or cut out twice as many calories and lose twice as much weight. But take your time, a 2-3 pound weekly weight loss is plenty and don’t worry if you lose less.

How much can you lose by jogging? Half an hour’s jogging will burn about 230 calories, an hour’s jogging about 460 calories. So you will burn a lot of that coffee and bar of chocolate in an hour. Of course you cannot just give up a lifetime’s devotion to reality TV and go jogging for any length of time. You won’t make it, probably injure yourself and decide to forget the whole idea as it is a lot harder than you expected. Start slowly, do a couple of weeks walking, increasing your speed as you feel more comfortable. You’ll be burning calories walking so these preliminaries are not a waste of time. Then start jogging for a few minutes a day, working up to half an hour a day and then an hour if you are able. Try to jog for at least six days a week. Ten minutes a day is better than two hours once a week, but just do what you can.

You will need to eat a more healthy diet as well, unless you decide to do a lot of jogging. By giving up junk food and fizzy drinks and eating more fresh fruit and vegetables, lean meat, fish and wholemeal grains you will be giving yourself every chance to lose weight and stay that way. Jogging is good for you, it is one of the best ways to lose fat and it is fun. Enjoy.

See you soon,

Peter Stockwell

Cambridge UK

24 July 2011

Photo. Beatle67 (Flickr)

Technorati Tags: best way to lose weight, jog for weight loss, jogging for fat loss, lose fat jogging, lose weight

Hello Everybody,

Many parents are desperate to know how to make kids lose weight. The first question for them to ask is, are they overweight themselves? ‘Don’t do as I do, do as I tell you’ is a recipe for disaster in any aspect of parenting and can only lead to constant battles. No child will take kindly to eating a healthy diet when its parents are eating junk food high in sugar and everything else the child really enjoys.

But we should ask why most children are addicted to sugar, ice cream and fizzy drinks. The reason is parents have bought them for their kids from an early age. One way of keeping a child quiet is to buy it an ice cream and when it screams for another buy it another. Nobody ever thinks of telling their kid from day one that a stick of celery or a banana is a rare treat only available on a Saturday or at a birthday party. Those of us who dimly remember the post war years in Europe know that children craved for bananas, they dreamed of bananas. Sadly at the time bananas were not available – those kids had never tasted one, but a banana was something they all wanted for their birthdays.

To make kids lose weight they must exercise. If a child sees the only exercise its parent gets is to waddle to the coffee shop, sit there all morning and waddle home again it will not see exercise as a priority. Or maybe it won’t even know exercise exists. Getting kids to lose weight is not just a matter for the kids. It is a family affair.

Exercise should involve the whole family. Cycling, walking and water sports come to mind. Sailing is a terrific family activity involving exercise, but also teaching kids responsibility and teamwork. Boats are not cheap but hire is possible and there are plenty of courses available where you can all learn to sail. Depending on the age of your child team sports might interest it, or maybe dancing. There is plenty to do with a little encouragement from parents.

 Think long and hard about a dog. It might seem a good idea to get a puppy – your child will exercise it and look after it, really it will.  Really it won’t. The puppy will grow up, no longer cute, inevitably badly trained and difficult. There will be homework to do, it will rain, your child will have tummy ache. You will do all the work. Dogs are trouble. If you want a family dog get one, train it properly and look after it yourself. But if your child is badgering you for a puppy, and you don’t have much time, buy it a short lived low maintenance hamster. It will solve a lot of problems.

So that is how to make kids lose weight. Get them on side, exercise and eat healthy food as a family. Lose weight together and everybody will be delighted at what you have achieved.

See you soon,

Peter Stockwell

Cambridge UK

16 July 2011

Photo. Crankymike (Flickr)

Technorati Tags: family weight loss, fat children, help kids lose weight, kids lose weight, obese kids

Hello Everybody,

The best weight loss walking plan is the best for you. Needs vary and can be satisfied in many ways. But first of all why should you walk at all to lose weight?  There are plenty of other ways of losing a few pounds.

 You could exercise in a gym which is fine if you live near one, can afford the fees and don’t mind looking, shall we say, a little out of place among all those fit young enthusiasts. You could swim; the same problems as a gym apply if you use a swimming pool, although there will be more people of size swimming than at a gym. Swimming still costs money, unless you are lucky enough to live near the sea or close to a lake or river. You can have a lot of fun cycling and it is great exercise but you do need to buy a bicycle and, if you really like that sort of thing, one of those tight lycra outfits and a serious crash helmet.

This brings us back to your weight loss walking plan. A walk can start at your front door and can be a wander round the block or a hike in the mountains. Not only does walking make you fit but you can walk alone, with a buddy or join a club to meet new people. Walking is easy and because it is easy you are likely to do it. But don’t expect too much. We all know that people who eat more calories than they burn get fat – those who burn more than they eat get thin.

You will not burn a massive amount of calories by walking. If you walk at 3 mph for an hour you will burn off a chocolate bar. So don’t eat one in celebration when you get home. To really lose weight you will need a more healthy diet as well as exercise. Of course how much you burn off depends on how long and how fast you walk and walking can even develop into jogging which does burn off a lot of calories – it is up to you to decide what you want and what you enjoy. Enjoyment is everything and you will lose weight if you keep up your exercise long term, at whatever level you decide upon.

Start slow with a 15 minute amble. Do this for a week or and then work up to walking faster for 30 minutes each day. You can make that your daily exercise and it will do you a lot of good. An hour’s walking a day is even better if you have the time. This can be 30 minutes morning and 30 minutes evening, it doesn’t have to be 60 minutes all at once. The secret is to keep doing it. You can have a day off a week if you want to, but do walk for the other 6 days.

That is your weight loss walking plan. Just walk on a regular basis for the distance and at the speed you enjoy. If you like company walk with a friend or join a club, if you need motivation get a dog.

See you soon,

Peter Stockwell

Cambridge UK

11 July 2011

Photo. Rbrucemongomery (Flickr)

Technorati Tags: best way to lose weight, Senior walking fitness, walk for weight loss, walking for weight loss, weight loss walking plans

Hello Everybody,

Is snacking healthy?  It all depends. One of the more obvious features of the Western lifestyle is the snack. We snack on the run, we snack at our desks and we snack in the car. It is one of the reasons we are eating more calories than we were 30 years ago – a lot more calories. The average daily intake in the US has increased by almost one third in the last 30 years. It has gone up from 1803 calories in 1977-1978 to 2374 calories in 2003 – 06. Today it may be even more.

Nobody died of starvation in 1977-1978. So what happens to those extra 571 calories we eat each day? You know the answer – they make us fat. Not just fat, obese. There are 70 million obese people in the US. This is not just a health issue – many obese people get sick, and have shorter lives than thinner people, it is an environmental issue and an economic one which affects everybody.

We need to produce those extra 571 calories per person per day just to keep us at out present weight. Remember the average is everybody, not just obese people. On 1977 figures it is like feeding an additional 100 million people. That is more than the size of the population of Germany. Fine if there actually were an extra 100 million people working and producing goods for the nation, but there are not. This of course is where the economic problem comes in, we are in effect feeding more people with the same resources.

So there we have the result of putting on weight, snacking is one of the causes. The other cause is the size of our portions. These have also increased since 1977-78. The answer to snacking is simple enough. You don’t have to cut out snacks completely, just change what you eat. An apple is better than a packet of crisps, a banana better than a muffin. Remember that sugary snacks do not only make you fat. They can damage your teeth as a well and dentists cost money.

Portion size is easily resolved. You don’t need giant portions – nobody needs giant portions. What you should be doing is eating five small portions a day rather than three big ones. Never cut out breakfast, do that and you will really hit the snacks mid-morning. It’s easy enough to lose weight; just a small lifestyle change and you are on your way. It is a good idea to exercise for 30 minutes a day as well as dropping your portion size and reducing the snacks. Take a walk round the block or in the park, maybe a cycle ride or a swim. You don’t need to go to a gym to exercise.

So is snacking healthy? Done right it is; eat fruit instead of junk for your snacks and you will be well on the way to losing weight. If enough people snack the right way we may even save the planet.

See you soon,

Peter Stockwell

3 July 2011

Photo. Cherokeemug (Flicr)

Technorati Tags: a good snack, easy weight loss, healthy snacking, how to lose weight, is snacking healthy, lose weight, the best snack