Welcome to Carol’s Corner on this cold windy night in Central New York. Of course I know my Canadian and Northern Midwestern readers have it worse than me, but I don’t like it any better. I wish to thank all of you who have responded to my picture and short bio request. The response here and in my SIS walking group is starting to be amazing. It started slow , but is building as we speak. I think it bonds us closer as a group and will serve to inspire everyone , as we each weave our own way along the road that is our personal journey to health and wellness. Think the Lord must have put that idea in my head , cause it just sort of all of a sudden showed up here, as it went from my head to the words I write here. I give God all the credit, for continually giving me the words and ideas with which to continue to educate and inform, and to motivate and inspire . Every day that I continue to publish a new post, I sort of amaze myself that I keep doing this every single day. Can you believe it’s now my 63rd blog post? I still can’t believe it. Liking my picture again today. Still working on that smile that does not come naturally to me. A little about this ensemble. The three color piece on the outside, was something I wore in the summer with one of my cami shapers underneath, with shorts or a skirt. I really loved it and was trying to figure out a way to make it into a winter outfit. I remembered this black ruffled blouse I got at the thrift store. Works perfectly. Pair it with one of my skinny pants, my boots that I practically live in these days, and the right jewelry , and there goes a perfect new outfit. In fact have another piece I was trying to figure out how to use now, and am going to use this same blouse to make another new outfit. This is the sort of thing I love doing. It’s all about figuring out the possibilities and coming up with something new. I’ve come up with two more ways to wear things I already had in my closet. So let’s get started with more on walking. Let’s address first the question, “Can I lose weight if my only exercise is walking ” ? I always tell people you need BOTH a weight loss diet or food plan , along with proper exercise to lose weight. It just works better that way. Read what this Registered Dietician from the Mayo Clinic has to say on the subject. It’s a short read , but informative. http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/weight-loss/expert-answers/walking/faq-20058345. For this next section I am going to be using material from about.com In the section entitled “About Health “, and an article about walking for weight loss. I’ll provide the link first and then go through some of what they say here. http://walking.about.com/od/weightloss/fl/How-to-Walk-for-Weight-Loss.htm

It starts out by stating that to lose weight and keep it off, you need to get moving. I firmly believe this to be especially true in keeping it off, once you shed those excess pounds. I think if I stopped my daily walk workouts , my weight would really start creeping back up. The article starts out with this fact: Walking at a moderate pace for 30-60 minutes burns fat and can build muscle to speed up your metabolism. Who doesn’t want that? Walking an hour a day can also help cut your risk of developing many diseases, all of the ones mentioned in my post yesterday. There are 10 sections to this article. Might be all we’re able to get through tonight, we’ll see. This is definitely turning into a series, because there is so much good useful information to find out here in cyberspace , and I kind of love looking for it. Ok. # 1. Burning calories walking. First, this section explains how you burn calories walking. This could actually be beneficial for you to know. Your weight and the distance you walk, determine the energy calories burned while walking. Use this link to access all different kinds of distance and calorie calculators. I’m quite sure this page will be of interest. http://walking.about.com/cs/howtoloseweight/a/calcalculators.htm

This says walking speed matters less than distance and weight. A rule of thumb says 100 calories per mile are burned for a 180 pound person and 65 calories per mile for a 120 pound person. Use the link to this page to go to other links, and also to see a chart to use , on this page. There are many links within links here. http://walking.about.com/cs/howtoloseweight/a/howcalburn.htm If you walk a 13 minute mile or less you will burn more calories. For beginning walkers it is suggested to increase the distance , before you begin working on increasing the speed. To lose weight you have to burn more calories than you take in, or you need to eat less calories. To find out how many calories your body burns per day just in maintaining your current weight, follow this link to a basal metabolic rate calculator. http://walking.about.com/cs/calories/g/bmr.htm Here’s some information that bears repeating. How do you burn a pound of fat? A pound of fat equals 3,500 calories. To lose 1 pound per week , you have to burn 3500 more calories than you eat that week. To lose just one pound per week you have to burn 500 more calories per day than you eat. You can do this by increasing your calorie burning activities or by eating fewer calories or both. I’m sure you can see the benefit of doing both at the same time. Exercising enough to burn 300-400 calories per day is a good goal for the exercise portion of your weight loss plan. There is so much information to be had here , think we better stop here for tonight and pick this up again tomorrow. I don’t want to fry your brain. I am not sure I even made it past number 1 here. I hope you are enjoying this exploration into the topic of walking and weight loss. Please leave me your comments positive or negative. I try to take them all to heart and always value your feedback. This is definitely turning into a longer series than I expected when I started this. Hope you are finding it beneficial. Now remember, stay focused , stay motivated, and keep on moving. Above all believe in yourself, and never ever give up. May God continue to bless all of your efforts on your own personal journey to health and wellness. See you soon.

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