Walking is Exercise: It May Save Your Life

We all hate to exercise, but we keep hearing more and more how exercise helps us in so many ways. Our doctors may be telling us, "You need to exercise." As we get older it concerns us deeply because our bodies change and we become more at risk for many health problems, some causing sudden death. Exercise helps us lose weight or maintain our desirable weight, it helps us stay in a good state of mind, it prevents our legs from getting stiff and painful, it prevents heart disease and it prevents strokes. Even though we know all this some of us still have so many excuses why we don't exercise, such as, "I don't have the time." "It's so boring." "I hate going to the gym." Believe me, I am one of those people and I did have a scare 16 months ago - a very unexpected triple bypass. Still, I find it so hard to exercise.

I have found one exercise I will gladly do and that's walking. It didn't take much effort to make this decision. Think about it. As long as health problems don't prevent us from walking, we all walk. We might not realize we are exercising as we are doing it. We walk to and from our car at many locations - home, work, in shopping centers...we walk in stores, we walk in the mall, we walk while we're doing errands, we walk at local attractions and we walk throughout our homes each day. If we walk just 10,000 steps per day we will stay very fit and very healthy. I know that just by doing a few errands in a day, I walk over 5,000 steps and meanwhile I am accomplishing what I need to in that day.

So do as I do, clip a pedometer to the waist of your pants, skirt, shorts or underwear and keep track of how many steps you walk each day. No one will even know you have one on. I found the cheapest one at Wal-Mart for under $10, and it also keeps track of the amount of calories burned, the miles walked and it's also a digital clock. Once you start this new daily regime you won't want to stop because it's such an easy way to accomplish 2 things at once: getting in the exercise you need and accomplishing what we need to each day.

When it comes to preventing heart disease and stroke, please don't say, "That won't happen to me." How do you know that for sure? It's easy for us to see what is going on with the outside of our body, but it's impossible to have a daily view of what is going on inside us. Heart attacks can happen suddenly without warning and so can strokes. Both can be fatal. We don't know what our blood is doing inside of us from one moment to the next. Strokes are caused by insufficient blood flow to the brain, or blood clotting in the brain. Heart attacks are caused by insufficient blood flow to the heart. As we walk, we keep our blood circulating properly. It doesn't take much effort. We do it every day anyway.

Keep on walking. It may save your life.