Surprising and Delightful Benefits of Walking for Exercise

This post may contain some affiliate links for your convenience. We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.

Have you ever had life get so busy that you stop exercising? That’s what happened to me this past winter. Then I just had the hardest time getting back to it. So I decided I would try walking for exercise as my way to get back to a workout routine.

 

Not only was life busy, I also just didn’t want to workout! I had absolutely no motivation to workout. I was quite content eating lots of food, think brownies and ice cream,  and watching movies and eating lots of BBQ potato chips.

When I decided to make the change to eating healthier, I decided that exercise should probably be included in my weight loss journey.

Related: This is what I changed to lose 5 pounds
Related: How we stopped dining out and started eating at home

I started looking at exercising and bottom line, I didn’t want to start a HIIT program and not be able to sit on the toilet in 2 days (think squats, lots and lots of squats). I wanted something I could continue for months and years. Not just a quick fix for now.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a great workout with weights and getting my heart rate up. Due to a physical ailment, I have learned that I should really focus on low impact. My go-to for that is yoga and walking.

Walking for Exercise

As I thought and examined exercising. I started walking. I would lace up my shoes and go outside in the cold and walk.

 

Walking has really helped me in the last couple of weeks. It has allowed me time to think quietly and given me the ability to relax.

Even though winter has been longer than usual, I still went outside to walk. Just being outside helped me to recenter.

Some benefits of walking for exercise:

Weight loss

Since starting walking a month ago, I have lost more weight. I am still eating a fairly healthy diet, but adding walking to my routine I have lost weight even faster. I lost 5 pounds over the course of a month, now I’m losing an added 3 pounds.

Improved Happiness

Exercise always helps with improving your mood. My winter blues have definitely been lifting from exercising and I’m guessing from being outside.

Muscle Toning

This is something I am so excited about! My muscles are starting to look nicer! My stomach is getting flatter, and I think that’s because while I walk I tighten my core muscles which strengthens them while I’m walking. Let’s not forget that my legs are getting leaner too.

Health benefits

Walking helps your heart and your blood pressure and your overall health.

It stirs up the creative juices

As I have gotten older, I have noticed my creativity has decreased. But once I started walking, I noticed I had more ideas for blog posts and I was able to write them down when I got back. As I learned about walking, I learned that other creatives used walking to stir up their creative juices.

Productivity

Since my creativity juices were flowing, this made me more productive! I was able to whip up blog posts faster and create images faster. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I was able to clear my mind of the clutter that daily life gives us while I was walking.

Better Sleep

My sleep quality had increased. Since I am more relaxed from walking, my body is able to sleep better.

My 30-day challenge

Since I learned about all the benefits of walking and I realized that I wanted something I could do no matter what happened in life, I decided I needed a 30-day challenge to keep me accountable.

For 30 days I was going to walk for exercise every day for 30 minutes. Easy right? Well, I would love to tell you that I was able to walk every day, but in reality, I wasn’t. But most weeks I did walk 6 days a week.

At first, it was a struggle. It was cold out and I just didn’t want to go out and walk. But with the colder temps, I walked faster. Which meant I burned more calories. That led to losing more weight.

For my 30 day challenge, I had 2 goals in mind: Walking for Exercise and Weight loss

I can honestly say that I succeeded in both goals. I was able to get my body moving by walking 30 minutes almost every day. There were day’s it didn’t happen, like when we had an ice storm in April. But I made a point to walk if weather permitted.

The weight did come off too. Following a healthy eating plan and implementing exercise allowed the weight loss to increase. I would love to tell you I lost 10 pounds, but that would be lying. But I do think it helped me burn more calories which allowed for more weight loss in the 30 day period.

Walk for Exercise

If you have made it this far, I hope you have found some motivation. Maybe you are going to take the 30-day challenge and go for a 30-minute walk every day. I would love to hear how it impacted you and your life, sign up for my email and send me a note saying how it helped you! I would love to hear from you!

Also, go lace up your shoes and take a walk!