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Feel Better, Lose Weight: The Health Benefits of Walking

Today’s National Walking Day. It’s also April Fool’s Day, which is a holiday that I think should be taken out to the barn and shot, but never mind about that. Here in southeastern PA today is gloriously sunny and in the low 70s; temps are forecasted to retreat into the 40s this weekend with a possibility of snow (SNOW!). There’s never been a better day for a nice, brisk walk.

Here, I present unto you the health benefits of walking and most pressing reasons to put on some pants and get outside:

Walking gets your blood flowing.

A recent Ball State study found that Americans generally spend 64% of waking hours in a sedentary position. Now, granted, Americans also don’t get enough sleep, so there’s not a lot of not-waking hours, but it’s still a sobering statistic. Even if you’re going to the gym after work every day for an hour of exercise, that isn’t enough to counteract the adverse effects of sitting all day long. While in a seated position, your lungs aren’t expanding fully, your circulation is compromised (it’s even worse if you have bad posture) and therefore the amount of oxygen being moved throughout your body is lessened. This means physical weakening and mental fuzziness.

Whenever you get the opportunity throughout the day, you should get up and walk around, stretch, do something to get that blood flowing to rejuvenate your mind and body.

You’ll live longer.

Physical activity lengthens our telomeres, the caps at the ends of chromosomes that are tied to aging and stress. On the flip side, a sedentary lifestyle is connected to increased mortality rates, from reasons spanning from colon and breast cancer (one study indicated those who were inactive were 40% more likely to die from their cancers) to insulin resistance to stroke and heart attack.

You’ll feel better.

Sedentary people are more likely to be depressed, although it’s hard to say whether being inactive leads to depression or if those who are depressed are less inclined to be active. However, there’s a good body of evidence showing that the endorphins produced from exercise helps to lift spirits, and that being out in nature lowers blood levels in the parts of the brain associated with rumination. In other words, going outside for a walk forces you out of your own head so that you’re not dwelling on the negative; in fact it can instead bring on a meditative state with all its positive effects.

You’ll be more creative.

Walking exposes us to new stimuli and allows our minds to wander: these unfettered thought and associations are the perfect prescription for creativity. Meanwhile, the exercise distracts the prefrontal cortex (right brain thinking) letting the left side of the brain take over a bit, plus it increases that blood flow to the brain, enlarging the hippocampus (which moves information from short-term to long-term memory). One Stanford study found that walking increased creative output by 60%!

You’ll probably lose weight over time.

For those who are currently sedentary or aren’t already committed to a weight loss regime, walking is a great place to start. It’s easy on the joints. It doesn’t involve any special equipment, upfront costs or new skills. It’s low pressure and not as intimidating as walking into a weight room or Zumba class. And for most people, it’s sustainable because it’s enjoyable: a chance to get out into the open air, bask in the sunshine, catch up with a friend.

If just walking doesn’t feel like a significant enough form of exercise to make a difference, consider this: for those with obesity who are trying to lose weight, the greatest health benefits come from losing just 5 percent of their body weight: according to a new study, that relatively small weight loss notably lowered risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease. It also improved metabolic function in liver, fat and muscle tissue.

To get the most weight loss benefits from walking, you’ll want to keep the pace brisk and heart rate elevated. Also, try walking immediately after meals— it helps to slow digestion and improve your circadian rhythyms (messed up circadian rhythms can make it more difficult for your body to let go of fat). And yes, you will need to look at your calorie intake. All the walking in the world can’t overrule basic math.

It’s just nice.

It IS.

I know it’s so much easier to stay where you are. But going for a walk is such a simple pleasure. Why deprive yourself of that, especially when it’s so good for you?

April 1, 2016
Mantra for 2016: Make All the Mistakes

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.

So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

― Neil Gaiman

God, I love Neil Gaiman.

He breaks my heart, in a beautiful way. He makes me want to write, to create, to populate new worlds with starlight and yearning and well dressed woodland creatures and dusty whispers from worlds gone by. At the same time, every time I read anything of his, I am so deeply aware that nothing I’d put to paper would ever come close to touching how gorgeous his darkness is that I give up before I’ve begun.

That said, these are things that Neil has wished for us, his readers, over the years. Two weeks into the new year, I’m somehow more ready to let them land.

Write them on your mirror, hang them on your heart… do what you need to remind yourself to make all the mistakes, to put something out there into the world that only you could ever contribute.

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

…I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you’ll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you’ll make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.

It’s a New Year and with it comes a fresh opportunity to shape our world.

So this is my wish, a wish for me as much as it is a wish for you: in the world to come, let us be brave – let us walk into the dark without fear, and step into the unknown with smiles on our faces, even if we’re faking them.

And whatever happens to us, whatever we make, whatever we learn, let us take joy in it. We can find joy in the world if it’s joy we’re looking for, we can take joy in the act of creation.

So that is my wish for you, and for me. Bravery and joy.

Be kind to yourself in the year ahead.

Remember to forgive yourself, and to forgive others. It’s too easy to be outraged these days, so much harder to change things, to reach out, to understand.

Try to make your time matter: minutes and hours and days and weeks can blow away like dead leaves, with nothing to show but time you spent not quite ever doing things, or time you spent waiting to begin.

Meet new people and talk to them. Make new things and show them to people who might enjoy them.

Hug too much. Smile too much. And, when you can, love.

January 13, 2016
Recap: Spartan Race Citizens Bank Park, 2015

For the third year in a row, we ran Spartan Race Citizens Bank Park, and for the third year in a row, we were totally not prepared for it.

The first year we just didn’t know what to expect. The past two years we just didn’t train properly, despite the best of intentions, so it felt harder than it needed to be and I knew perfectly well I coulda shoulda done a whole lot better.

Don’t we look happy and accomplished in that picture up there? Yeah. This picture here is a more accurate representation of how I felt most of that day.

Miserable. It was cold and windy and that stadium is like a wind tunnel. By the time it came for us to run, we’d been frozen stiff; it literally took half the race before my legs started to feel warmed up properly.

The wait did mean we got to spectate a bit, which was nice. Amazingly, I happened to notice when one of our CrossFit coaches went across the monkey bars— that’s her with her hair in a bun, in the middle.

Those monkey bars are no joke. They’re wide in diameter and far apart, and you have to be careful to keep your feet off the mats. Touch down and you’re done.

After cheering Coach Mik across the monkey bars we went and waited for her to deal with the traverse wall. This sucker is one of many obstacles at Spartan Race that is harder than it looks; it requires a fair amount of finger grip strength and getting around the curves is rough.

Another deceptive obstacle, a new one this year. It looked like it was going to be fun. All you had to do was keep your feet on the skates and “walk” across on your hands, spin around, then come back the same way.

But, the wheels were like the ones on shopping carts in that they swung every which way, and liked to pull hard to the left, and sometimes my feet would randomly overrun my hands. It was not easy.

I guess it was sort of fun.

Seriously, I look like a psycho. A cold, windblown, miserable psycho.

My yearly dugout photo. I look happy here because I’m out of the wind and in the homestretch.

I really struggled with the walls this year, which is disappointing because I don’t usually. My upper body strength is not where it used to be.

And for the third year in the row I still didn’t ring that damn bell at the top of the rope. I’ve got the technique pretty much down, but I get scared at a certain point. Also, the knots actually make it harder and these ropes are well worn; the ones at my gym have a lot more grip to them.

I don’t know. Next year, I hope.

Another year down. I’d say I gave a solid… like… 65% of my best effort. So if you’re wondering if you can manage Spartan Race, the answer is YES. Yes, you can, and you should. Because even though it was cold, and miserable, and I wasn’t ready, I enjoyed it as always.

More details on Spartan Race obstacles at stadium races here.

Rope climbing techniques and other ways to prep for Spartan Race obstacles here.

December 17, 2015