Everybody at some time struggles with weight problems. You are not alone.

Before you start on your exercise regime to lose weight buy yourself a nice notebook! If you are to succeed you need to track your progress. This is a wonderful motivating strategy and it also gives you encouragement to carry on. Remember too that you are in competition with nobody but yourself. We are all different and approach our problems from a different perspective.

Walking is an excellent exercise to help you to lose weight. Of course you must use it in conjunction with a calorie controlled diet. This does not mean that you have to buy special foods or follow restrictive diets. Make sure you eat a balanced diet with lots of fruit and vegetables. Watch your intake of sugar and carbohydrate and exercise daily.

A pedometer, which can be bought in sports shops or on line is a wonderful tool for keeping track, Buy a simple on which does not need much programming.
Rule your notebook as illustrated and record the readings from your pedometer daily. Every step counts so put on your pedometer first thing in the morning. Your aim is 10,000 steps daily.

Date Steps Time Distance Calories


Walking helps you build muscle which in turn speeds up your metabolism which will burn fat more easily. Walking of course has other benefits. It reduces your risk of heart disease, breast cancer, diabetes type two and colon cancer.

Losing one pound per week is a realistic goal. Remember if you lose weight too fast it is very easy to put it back on again. When we eat we stack up calories to give us energy to carry out our normal daily tasks. If we consume more calories than we are able to burn off through activity we gain weight.

One pound of fat equals 3500 calories. If you are to lose one pound weight you need to burn that many more calories than you eat in a week or 500 calories per day. If you weigh 11stone ( 154 lbs) and you walk for two miles at an average walking speed of 3 miles per hour you will burn 163 calories.

To lose walk by walking you will need to walk a little faster, a little longer than you might normally chose to do but the rewards are worth it. Work on increasing your distance before you work on increasing your speed. When you walk faster you use your arms more using more muscles. This burns up more calories. To lose weight you either have to eat less or exercise more or a combination of both.

Once you are able to walk for one hour daily without much effort you can think of increasing your speed. Walking faster will burn more calories. A good way to start walking faster is to take a point in the distance about fifty yards from where you are and then speed up your walking until you reach that point Pretend you are rushing for the bus or for an appointment!. Then slow down as long as you need to and repeat. In this way you increase your stamina and speed gradually.

Remember every calorie you burn counts and every long journey starts with one step. Enjoy your walking and your new shape!