Walking for Weight Loss
I recently surveyed 63 midlife women. Over half expressed concern about their increasing weight and health as they age. My hubby and I talk about this for ourselves all the time. To help keep us fit into old age, we started walking for weight loss. All it takes is a visit to any public place and you can see that half the population is overweight. About a third are obese.
This got me thinking about the Economic Impact of Obesity in the United States. In a 2010 study, The National Center for Biotechnology Information (basically a thinktank branch of the National Institute of Health) estimated the direct medical costs for overweight people to be 10 – 20% higher than those not overweight, and people who are obese spend 36 – 100% than a normal weight person.
Total estimated additional medical costs attributed to overweight/obesity were reported to be $86 – $147 Billion nationwide. For women aged 40 -65 alone, the estimate was $640 million. This is a 10-year old report, but you can see that just the estimated direct medical costs are staggering. This doesn’t consider all of the various other impacts they measured. Some were things we might not even think about, such as absenteeism or transportation costs.
The Business of Weight Loss
Then there are disability impacts, and mortality rates. These are hitting much closer to home, and it’s no surprise that the weight loss industry is BIG business. If you want an eye-opener, I highly recommend watching Fed Up. It’s a documentary narrated by Katie Couric about the obesity epidemic in America and the food industry. Even if you write the film off as political propaganda, there is good food for thought baked in. (Pun intended!)
So, what do we do about it? My personal journey has been an up and down merry-go-round of losing and gaining the same 20 pounds. I don’t allow myself to get above a particular weight. However, I have consistently let myself gain those 20 pounds, over, and over again. I placate “chubby Jonni” with the excuse that I’m only 20 pounds above my healthy weight. Most people carry much more than that, right?
Impact on Health
Usually, I was comfortable with only 10 pounds over my healthy weight and my clothes are mostly of that size. The truth is my frame looks best and operates most effectively in the middle of my weight chart. But I’ve been hanging out at the top. When the pounds start creeping up, my hips, knees, ankles, and feet start hurting. My flexibility is hampered by the spare tire around my middle, and I start having digestive issues. Are you are raising your hand about now?
I made plenty of excuses. “I’m too busy to overhaul my pantry, or to cook a decent meal after work, or to pack a healthy lunch.” “My work schedule prevents me from exercising.” “My hips hurt too much to walk.” “It gets dark too soon or is still too dark in the morning.” There were so many reasons why I couldn’t take better care of myself. After I retired and we moved, I was too busy unpacking to exercise. Besides, I was getting a workout just lifting all of those boxes.
Yoyo Dieting
Quick fix diets (read extreme) became my norm. Every January Lindora, Atkins, Code Red, or Keto would help me drop enough weight to fit back into my chorus and quartet costumes. I’d quite literally starve myself with fewer than 800 calories and under 50 carbs each day. This left me so weak that a walk to my car could start my head spinning. A night of chorus choreography was risky on so few calories. I would have to eat dinner with some carbs on chorus nights. I rarely took time to, otherwise. By March, I was usually back to my thinnish self. But I’d relax after April and start gaining all over again. One vicious cycle after another left me feeling worse with each passing year.
Then came COVID and we couldn’t buy bread. The weird thing is I rarely even eat bread except for maybe a toasted English muffin with peanut butter for breakfast, or an occasional piece of garlic bread with pasta, or sometimes a grilled cheese or a BLT sandwich, but not often. I don’t even really enjoy sandwiches. Still, when we couldn’t find bread, it suddenly became important to me to provide bread for my husband and mom. We couldn’t find yeast, either. So, I made my own to make sourdough bread, and basically everything else. I made waffles and crackers and cake and croutons. I made so many things with the sourdough discard. We were in sourdough heaven. If you’re interested in sourdough, you might enjoy this article, Learn to Make Sourdough Bread.
I made chocolate chip cookies every other week, and comfort foods every night. And the wine! Oh, the wine. While I worked on developing this website, I’d stuff my face with candy between paragraphs. My typical 10-pounds of squish around the middle grew into 21 extra pounds, pushing me into that magic number where I say, “No way!” And now you’re up to speed. If you’ve read this far, I’m guessing you have a similar story.
Everybody Gets the Blues
Aside from the extra weight that I packed on, I was feeling blue from being on lock-down, and none of my clothes fit, not even my stretchy work-out leggings. Everything was so tight and constricting that I had to buy some new tops and shorts in a size I don’t even want in my closet. And that was the last straw. We all have our “rock bottom”, and that was mine.
That Thursday morning, I woke up, got dressed, put on make-up and jewelry, and decided that I was going to take control of the seemingly uncontrollable. I might not be able to have my regular life due to COVID, but I didn’t need to spiral into vat of wine and self-pity. I pulled out my various “eating plans” and crafted a menu for the following week as well as a grocery list. My fallback dieting norm was very low carb eating, so that’s where we started. We spent about 3 weeks losing very slowly. The weight that used to drop off in that amount of time was clinging stubbornly to my belly and thighs.
The Aging Metabolism
Dieting is hard for me, actually. I was always a skinny person, and I could eat anything I wanted until I was in my mid 30’s. By the time I went on my first real diet, I was in my 40’s and resorted to extreme low carb fast-fix diets. I’ve read so many diet books that I was pretty confident in my knowledge of nutrition. That’s where the big fat lie comes in. That vicious cycle of lose, gain, and lose is the diet industry’s “evergreen” product that keeps us coming back again and again. That cycle and my increasing age wreaked havoc on my metabolism, and after a month of severe dieting, I hadn’t lost more than a couple of pounds.
And that’s where things got serious. They say change only happens when the pain of change is less than the pain of staying the same. Staying the same was just not working. I had never exercised while losing weight before. Who’s got time for that? But I was desperate and being at home all the time removed that excuse.
Call in the Big Guns
So, I called my daughter, the fitness trainer, and asked for help. We set up twice weekly sessions. It had been so long since I had done anything physical, especially on so few calories, that I nearly fainted that first few sessions. Karen encouraged me to eat more calories, and to make sure I was getting enough electrolytes and minerals in my diet. I was drinking a ton of water, and my vitamins were flushing out. Basically, I wasn’t eating enough to sustain any type of physical activity.
Over the next 2 weeks, my husband and I overhauled our diets and settled into a healthy fitness plan. Aside from training twice a week, we started a walking routing, and hubby is riding his bike when I train. The training is getting me toned, and my daughter is skilled at crafting a work-out that improves my strength, balance, and mobility. I think the walking has really helped my weight loss, along with a sensible diet. I’m walking for an hour 3 or 4 days a week, in addition to the strength training. This is week five, and I’m happy to say that I’ve lost all of the COVID weight, and I’m now working on the weight I gained since the move. Most of my clothes fit again. Next, I’ll be working toward finally getting back to the middle of my weight chart.
Back on Track
It’s surprising that I’ve managed to lose so much weight with eating 50% more calories and 30% more carbs than before. I’m enjoying our meals and am getting closer to feeling like we can sustain this way of eating forever. I’ve even enjoyed a very occasional glass of wine. That’s our ultimate goal, to create a lifestyle that keep us healthy and fit well into our twilight years.
More than losing weight and toning up, I’d say the biggest benefit for me has been the mental clarity. I feel so good, and I’m back to my chipper self.
Keep Your Balance
Walking strengthens the muscles in your feel, ankles, and legs. This will help build balance to keep you upright as you age. My daughter was having me walk around the room doing deep lunges while holding a heavy weight in one hand. While wobbling around the circle, I complained that I would be much more stable if she’d give me one for my other hand. She said we’re working on my stabilizing muscles so that my body learns to correct itself when thrown off balance.
“Ooh”, I said, “that might really help me when I get old and rickety.” To which she replied, “Mom, you’re already on the rickety side of old.” I gasped, “No way! I have great balance. I can stand on one foot forever, see?” That’s when the clincher came, “Mom, nobody ever falls and breaks a hip while standing on one foot. It’ll happen when you’re running across the stage, or up the risers.” Ouch. She got me where it hurt.
How Do You Walk for Weight Loss?
There are many plans out there, but this 12-week Walking Plan from the Mayo Clinic is easy to start and gives you time to really incorporate the plan into a habit. According to Prevention Magazine: Walking guards your brain. Two hours of walking per week cuts your risk of stroke by 30%. Hitting the road also protects brain regions associated with planning and memory, and doing it for 20 minutes a day has even been found to reduce symptoms of depression. I completely believe this last one, because I feel so much better already!
Before you start any exercise program, you should check with your doctor. Most medical professionals recommend walking. They even get you up and walking the halls the same day you have surgery! I remember recovering from a serious surgery many years ago, and the doctor challenged me to get up and walk some every day. I was so weak that I couldn’t even walk up the stairs in our house. My doctor encouraged me to walk to the end of the driveway and back, and to increase my distance a few feet beyond the driveway each day, until I was walking to the corner and back, then around the block, and eventually for miles at a time.
Start slowly and work up to a 3 – 4 mile-per-hour pace. I’m walking that now, for an hour each session, but I started with a decent level of endurance. Just do what you can, and work to increase it every day. Eventually you’ll be walking everywhere and looking and feeling great!
Have you started an exercise plan? Let us know in the comments.
