A health, fitness, and weight loss guide by the author of
“The Minnesota Walk Book” series
WRITTEN BY
JAMES W. BUCHANAN
&
JAMES P. BUCHANAN
EDITED BY
HOWARD HENDRICKSON
“If you want to be alive tomorrow, walk today!”
James W. Buchanan
Copyright 2001: James W. Buchanan & James P. Buchanan & Howard
Hendrickson
“This book is dedicated to those four season walkers.”
ABOUT US:
I, James W. Buchanan, and my son, James P. Buchanan are outdoorsmen whose main
interests are backpacking and hiking. We understand and appreciate the
outdoors and its ecology, the satisfactions and solaces of walking all kinds of
trails, the rewards, and sometimes the frustrations of being a part of
nature. We have written books about Minnesota’s trails as well as
magazine articles and newspaper letters advocating building and using trails as
public transportation, for individual and group exercise, and as wildlife
habitat.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK:
The authors and editor have organized this book into sections designed to be
useful for people in all stages of physical fitness. The opening chapters
are for couch potatoes and lounge lizards who get tired after climbing one
flight of stairs. While the closing chapters are for people already in
excellent physical health, from university students, who exercise every day, to
professional athletes recovering from sports injuries.
We recommend that you read this entire book at least once. However, you
should print only the sections that apply to your current walking interests and
level of physical fitness, for easy reference while you are away from your
computer.
Before starting any new exercise program, consult your doctor, or sports
physician, to get the correct training schedule that will help you gain a
leaner and stronger body, as well as a longer and happier life!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE: Introduction
CHAPTER TWO: Walking to Physical and Mental Health
CHAPTER THREE: Day Hiking
CHAPTER FOUR: Backpacking
CHAPTER FIVE: Bushwhacking
CHAPTER SIX: Medical Emergencies
CHAPTER SEVEN: The Path to Better Health and a Longer Life
CHAPTER EIGHT: Suggested Reading List and the addresses of many walking
friendly organizations
CHAPTER ONE: Introduction
“Walking is the easiest exercise for most individuals, one that can be done
without equipment except good shoes, in almost any terrain and weather, and
into very old age.”
Dr. Paul Dudley White, cardiologist for President Dwight D. Eisenhower
According to Marci Shatzman in a survey for the Tribune Media Services, INC.,
walking is now the most popular fitness exercise in the United States, with a
reported 32.5 million people walking for fitness every day. According to
the survey, the average age of the walkers was 44.5 years with an average
household income of $50,500.
Why should people walk? The answer is that walking is an exercise
activity that benefits the human body from head to toe.
Head:
Walking
stimulates the thought process by increasing the brain’s supply of oxygenated
blood.
It
boosts the spirits through the release of a natural, mood‑elevating, brain
chemical called endorphin.
It
also reduces the risk of strokes by keeping blood free‑flowing and the arteries
of the brain elastic.
Finally,
it forestalls senility by keeping blood vessels of the brain free of blood‑blocking
plaque.
Heart:
Walking
benefits the heart by lowering its resting pulse and reducing blood pressure.
It
decreases the amount of artery clogging, blood fats.
Equally
important, it encourages the development of “safety valve” blood vessels that
can redirect blood flow in the event a heart attack occurs.
The Lungs:
A
regular daily walking program can,
Increase
“VO2 max” the ability of the cardiorespiratory system to use oxygen.
Strengthen
muscles of the diaphragm.
Reduces
the symptom of chronic emphysema and bronchitis.
Reduces
the desire to smoke.
The Stomach:
A
regular walking program can help your stomach work more efficiently by aiding
digestion as well as improving your abdomens appearance through weight control.
Feet:
Walking
is kind to the feet in that,
Walking
subjects the feet to no greater forces than standing still.
Walking
strengthens muscles and tendons in the feet reducing pain.
The Legs:
Walking
helps build not just more attractive legs, but also better looking and
healthier legs by,
Slimming
heavy legs down.
Adding
muscles to skinny legs.
Slowing
the development of Varicose veins.
The Bones:
Bones
respond to weight bearing exercise such as walking by taking on more calcium
and other minerals adding bone density and making this hard tissue more
resistant to osteoporosis.
The Back:
Runners
may suffer lower back pain, as running puts much compression and stress upon
their spinal disks. On the other hand, walkers put no more stress on
their spinal disks than standing or sitting.
My life is like a stroll upon the beach. As near the ocean’s edge as I
can go.
My life is like a stroll upon the beach. Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862
Walking and Human Evolution
Walking, along with the body’s ability to store fat, has played a major role in
human evolution. For hundreds of thousands of years, our prehistoric
ancestors were nomadic hunters and gatherers who lived in multi-generational
family groups. During these times, walking was the only form of land travel,
in a Stone Age society, where finding food was, frequently,
unpredictable. This uncertain food supply, and limited human technology,
resulted in periods of feast and famine.
Often, humans survived periods of famine by using stored body fat supplies to
walk into areas where food might be available. When food was found, they
feasted to store up enough body fat to live through the next period of
famine. Those people whose bodies could store enough fat to survive
famines lived long enough to pass on this survival characteristic to their
offspring. It was the survival of the fittest; as those who lived long
enough to have children were the ones best able to store fat in times of feast
and live off their body fat in times of famine.
As a result, both feasting and starvation generate chemical signals to tell our
cells to either store fat for times of famine or burn fat for locomotion.
Modern humans have inherited this craving for fat without the environmental
conditions which have caused it to develop in our prehistoric ancestors.
Now, in modern, developed nations, especially the United States, the technology
of modern agribusiness has created abundant, inexpensive, and highly processed
food, too often loaded with sugar, salt, and fat to provide good
nutrition. In addition, 19th and 20th century technology has developed
work environments where machines have replaced human muscle power.
Accordingly, the modern workforce needs fewer calories to maintain body weight,
while, simultaneously, producing more goods and providing more services.
The human body has evolved for living in the feast or famine environmental
conditions that, for most American, most of the time, no longer exist.
Now, for most people living in the United States, it’s always feast and never
famine. The result of this inherited craving for fat and the lack of
physical exercise is obesity. American doctors define obesity as an
excess amount of body fat. It is a condition that annually accounts for
more than 300,000 ( or about 14 percent ) of deaths in the United States.
It is the second leading cause of deaths right after the use of tobacco ( which
is the number one annually causing 19 percent of the nation's deaths according
to the Journal of the American Medical Association. ) An article in the
University of California Berkeley Wellness Letter Reports that smoking kills
more Americans every year that died in battle in both World Wars and the
Vietnam War. The article goes on to say that every day more than 1,200
Americans die of smoking related illnesses.
The Leading Causes of Death in the United States
Tobacco
use‑19%
Lack
of physical exercise and poor diet‑14%
Alcohol‑5%
Infectious
agents‑4%
Pollutants/toxins‑3%
Firearms‑2%
Sexual
behavior‑1%
Motor
Vehicles‑1%
Illicit
drug use‑1%
No comments:
Post a Comment