Walking may be such a mundane task compared to fancy workouts in gyms accompanied by personal trainers, but fitness experts believe that it is a vital component in health and well-being. In fact, walking is considered a biological imperative, like eating.
Compared to weekly or occasional power workouts and weekends of intensive training, daily movement and an integrated active lifestyle, albeit minimal or seemingly light, is a healthier and more sustainable route.
In her book "Move Your DNA: Restore Your Health Through Natural Movement", author and scientist Katy Bowman writes that the body needs movement nutrients, much like dietary nutrients.
In fact, Bowman calls walking a "super food", a defining movement of a human. "It's a lot easier to get movement than it is to get exercise," Ventura, California biochemist adds.
Bowman notes that researchers have found evidence that it is more important to look at combined inactivity and physical activity for chronic disease risk than looking at physical activity alone.
A term called "actively sedentary" is a new category of individuals "who are fit for one hour but sitting around the rest of the day," Bowman said. Despite this effort, she exerts that 10 hours of stillness cannot be offset with one hour of exercise, stressing that incorporating movement within those 10 hours is more effective in staving off chronic disease risk than an hour a day of intense physical activity.
Leslie Sansone, creator of the "Walk at Home: Mix & Match Walk Blasters" DVD, believes that a lot of individuals think that spending hours at the gym and engaging in grueling workouts is the only path to staying fit and healthy. Sansone calls it the "Biggest Loser idea", which promotes that being fit is a tasking process that involves "throwing up and crying".
Being and staying fit need not be a dreaded experience, if one incorporates it in daily life instead of seeing it s a weekly task. Meanwhile, Bowman notes that walking does not do everything, like build strength and toughen up bones. Still, she believes that walking is the best option if one were to pick a single activity.
