Walk For Fitness ... It Works
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For a year or two the TV has been telling us that we only need to walk for fitness for half an hour every second day to remain reasonably fit. Then last week they came out with a really alarmist report, saying that even walking for an hour and a half each day doesn't help your fitness at all, because you must get your pulse rate up until you are gasping for breath.
Well, I've got news for them. I walk for an hour each day, well, it's more of a gentle stroll, covering only three miles. I could carry on a conversation if I had a walking companion, without getting out of breath.
In my barbershop quartet, I'm the one who drops to my knees to vow everlasting love to the lady in the third row. I'm the one who runs up the steps in the auditorium to ask the technician to adjust the lights. I'm the one who carries four stands for the risers while others are carrying one at a time.
What chance do you think I would have had if I spent all my time at the computer, instead of almost all my time as I do now?
Now let's do a little simple mechanics calculation. Work is force times distance moved. That means that if I walk three miles, and a diabetic weighing five times as much as I do walks three miles, the distance moved is exactly the same. So that only leaves the force, which is the weight of the person involved.
Oh, I see you are ahead of me! Of course the diabetic does five times as much work as I do. I leap out of my bed, or chair, or armchair. The diabetic struggles and strains, and has to get her feet just right before she can struggle to her feet. But she has just done five times as much work as I did.
If you're not a mechanic, you may not know that working burns calories. That's right, the diabetic has just burned five times as many calories as I did, so is on her way to lose a little weight. If she remains on her feet for ten minutes after every meal, it will help her digestion, but it will also burn calories.
To start her exercise program she might walk three fifths of a mile - perhaps once round the block, and she will have burned as many calories as I burned by walking three miles. Walk for fitness - especially if you aren't fit enough to walk far or fast. It works, whatever people wanting to sell you treadmills might say.
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