Walking Exercise

When it comes to exercise and losing weight, the activities that come to mind for most people consist of things like going to the gym andgetting on the treadmill, bike or elliptical, running long distances, or even Pilates,yoga or aerobics. These activities and the word fun are not often used in the same sentence for most people. However, one of the best and most comfortable ways to reallylose weight is to go hiking.

At the Ranch at Live Oak Malibu, one of the world's premierweight loss retreats, more time is actually spent hiking than any otheractivity. In general, the first 4-6 hours of each day is spent trekking aroundthe Santa Monica Mountains, enjoying the scenery, but also burning anunbelievable number of calories. According to the calorie calculator athealthstatus.com, if you weight 160 pounds a 2 ½ hour hike will burn 1,080calories. That is more calories than you would burn in two hours of aerobics,jogging, bicycling or swimming, yet most people enjoy hiking and don't eventhink of it as vigorous exercise.

Losing weight is really a matter of exerting more caloriesthan you take in. I am not going to get into BMI formulas and things like thatas that becomes an article in its own. That being said, doing 2-3 two hourhikes per week is potentially enough to add about 2500 calories burned to yourregimen per week. If all else stays the same and you are sticking to a dietthat is appropriate for your BMI, that will allow you to lose about a pound perweek. That may not seem like much in itself, but over 2-3 month that can add upto 10+ pounds.