Walking and talking

Last evening we decided to take a walk around Rivers Bend before dinner.  Rivers Ben is a 55 plus community in Healdsburg.   We started out with the intention of walking at least 20 minutes.  Ran into Patricia.  We had waved at her every time we passed her driving in and out of the community.  This time we stopped to introduce ourselves before walking on. 

Around the corner a woman was sweeping up the leaves in the gutter.  I guess we startled her when we said hi.  We started talking.  I had met her before and we had a great time exchanging stories. I think her name was Heidi (memory is a terrible thing to lose).   We talked until Patricia returned.  Turned out Patricia is Heidi's daughter.  We talked more.

Got home a hour after leaving but only walked for about 10 minutes.  At least we were standing up all the time and that does burn calories.  Maybe we can do better today.

Update

Every Saturday I review my weekly goals.  This week I had wanted to walk every day.  I managed to walk 15 minutes on one day.  Hummm, not quite what I wanted to achieve.  Ok, this next week I will walk at least 20 minutes on three separate days.  I have got to get back into the habit. 

Standing Up for Weight Loss

A health coach friend of mine just posted this on Facebook. 

STAND UP
Researchers at the Mayo Clinic found that lean people spend 2 more hours per day on their feet than overweight people. Participants in the study who stood, paced, and fidgeted burned as many as 350 extra calories a day and were much leaner than those who didn’t move as much. Get up from your desk at work, talk on the phone while standing, and stay on your feet in waiting rooms—the simplest effort will yield an extra calorie burn that may help you shed those remaining pounds.

A New Beginning

When I started this blog I was a health coach with a program called Take Shape for Life and walking was a big part of my weight loss.  At the time I was living in Gladstone, Oregon, and had started a group called the Gladstone Rainwalkers.  We walked rain or shine...and it was usually raining.

Then I moved to Healdsburg and I stopped walking and gave up my health coaching practice.  That was a couple of years ago.  Now I want to start walking again.  I need to walk again.   I have decided to use this blog to record my success (or failure) to start walking again and to share my experiences.  Hopefully they will help motivate other people to tae up walking. 

Happy Walking!

I'm Back

I seem to have solved my access problems.  Now I can start writing again, but first I have to start walking again too.

Surprise

Surprise, I'm back. It has been a long time since I created this blog. I have moved and have spent the last year learning my new community and creating a support group. Now it's time to get back to walking. This blog will help me get back into the grove.

Walking Humor - The Importance of Walking

Walking can add minutes to your life. This enables you at 85 years old to spend an additional 5 months in a nursing home at $7000 per month.

My grandpa started walking five miles a day when he was 60. Now he's 97 years old and we don't know where he is.

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

The only reason I would take up walking is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.

I have to walk early in the morning, before my brain figures out what I'm doing.

I joined a health club last year, spent about 400 bucks. Haven't lost a pound. Apparently you have to go there.

Every time I hear the dirty word 'exercise', I wash my mouth out with chocolate.

I do have flabby thighs, but fortunately my stomach covers them.

The advantage of exercising every day is so when you die, they'll say, 'Well, she looks good doesn't she.'

If you are going to try cross-country skiing, start with a small country.

I know I got a lot of exercise the last few years,...... just getting over the hill.

We all get heavier as we get older, because there's a lot more information in our heads. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

AND Every time I start thinking too much about how I look, I just find a Happy Hour and by the time I leave, I look just fine.

Gladstone Rainwalkers Update

We have had a couple of successful walks, with the group doubling in size. However, we didn't make it out this week. The sidewalks and streets of Gladstones are covered with the ice, the remnants of our first snow storm of the season. We'll walk in the rain and we'll walk in the sunshine, but there a limits and ice is one of them.

Today we're in the middle of our second storm, with both snow and freezing rain in the forecast. The next storm, the big one, is scheduled for Sunday and into Monday. The outings of the Gladstone Rainwalkers may not occur until sometime in the new year.

Welcome to my Walking for Wellness Blog

It's strange how things like this get started. I have been talking to a friend about starting a walking group here in Gladstone, Oregon. It's a mostly forgotten place, located between Oak Grove to the North and Oregon City to the South. It's where the Clackamas River meets the Willamette River. I like to say it's somewhere in time between 1940 and 1963. The traffic by passes us on I-205 and McLaughlin Blvd. It's a great place to live, but please don't tell anyone.

I'm a health coach and have become interested in walking again as a way to maintain my recent 80 pound weight loss. I'm now sharing my experiences in regaining my health and decided it would be fun to have a group to walk with. I shared my idea with a friend while having my daily cup of coffee at the Happy Rock Coffee Company in downtown Gladstone.

Talk finally lead to action and on a wet Tuesday morning the Gladstone Rainwalkers had their inaugural walk in the rain. We returned to the coffee shop wet but excited about continuing to walk, rain for shine, and wanting to add more people to the group.

This blog is just the beginning of my efforts to promote walking as a tool for achieving optimal health.

According to Dr. Wayne Scott Andersen, author of the just released Habits of Health, the Levine Lab at the Mayo Clinic reports that:

“leisure-time sedentariness has resulted from the availability and volitional use of pervasive mechanization. When the energetic cost of non-work mechanization is estimated experimentally it approximentes to 100 kca-200 kcal/day: a caloric deficit that potentially account for the entire obesity epidemic.”

Dr. A’s translation;

“Put down the remote, shovel your walk, open your cans with a manual opener, use the stairs, and take your dog for a walk, and you’ll maintain your healthy weight. Take a friend and your dog for a walk and you’ll help cure the epidemic!”

The Gladstone Rainwalkers and the other walking groups that I hope to inspire will do our part to reverse the epidemic of obesity one person, one walker at a time.

Happy Walking