The comal and olla are traditional Mexican cooking utensils. What are they
and what are they used to prepare?

Health Tip for January 27-31, 2003

Walking for Weight Control

Burning Calories

Wegith is determined mostly by the balance of calories- how many you burn vs. how many you eat each day. To lose weight, you need to increase youe activity to burn more and/or eat fewer calories each day.

A pound of fat equals 3,500 calories. To lose one pound a week, you will need to expend 3,500 more calories than you eat that week, whether through increased activity or decreased eating or both.

Losing 1-2 pounds of fat a week is a sensible goal, and so you will want to use the combination of increased activity and eating less that will total 3,500 calories for 7 days. Your weight x distance = energy used walking. Time does not matter as much as distance.

If you speed up to walking a mile in 13 minutes or less, you will be burning more calories per mile. But fo most beginning walkers, it is best to increase the distance before working on speed. A simple rule of thumb is 100 calories per miole for a 150 pound person.

Burning More Calories 
Build up to walking more miles. Concentrate your training on bulding distance before you build speed, and walking five or six days a week.

Absolute beginner walkers: you build leg muscles as you increase your walking time and distance. Concentrate on building the amount of time you spend walking.

For those of you who have been walking for months or years: you will need to alter your walking style to build more muscles just from walking. Learning to racewalk, you would be building new muscles and burning more calories per mile.

For those who are not interested in racewalking to build muscle: you should add some strength training to your weekly exercise schedule in addition to walking in order to build muscle.

Burn More Walking Calories per Mile
Learn to racewalk- at speeds over 13-minute mile rate you are burning you are burning more calories per mile as you use more muscle groups, as well as building muscle.

Fewer Calories Mean Less to Burn
That Old Math
A candy bar equals 3-5 miles worth of walking. A Big Mac is worth 10K. If you have fallen into eating habits where you are taking in more calories per day than you use, you will not lose weight.

Eating Well
Most of us are not awareof how much we really eat per day. Make a food diary for a week and take a look. Make small changes and add them up to get lifetime results.

How Fast to Walking to Burn Fat
Warm-Up
First you want to wake up your muscles and let them know you plan to be active for a while. Walking at an easy warm-up pace for 5-10 minutes tells your muscles they can't just sit back and burn up the available sugars, they need to call on fat reserves.

This is why you should not start off at a high speed- when you do that, your cells don't get the signal that this is a long-term activity, so instead they burn up sugars only.

Work-out
The speed to walk for optimal fat burning is a "determined" pace. At htis rate, you should be breathing notiveably, but able tocarry on a conversation in full sentences. Heart rate should be at 60-70% of your maximum heart rate. Work up to 30 minutes of walking at this pace.

Raising Your Metabolism
Good work, you've tricked your body into dipping into your fat stores for energy. You are also building muscle and raising your basal meetabolic rate so you are burning more calories all day long.

Faster and Faster
Walking with racewalk style at paces under 13 minutes per mile will burn more calories per mile. When you are able to walk 30 minutes at a fairly fast pace, you mmay want to build speed as well as duration.

Walking Schedule for Weight Loss

Short Day: Warm up 5-10 minutes. Stretch. Walk at target pace for 30 minutes. Slow to easy pace for 5 minutes. Finish with gentle stretching.

Long Day: Warm up 5-10 minutes at an easy pace. Stretch. Walk at target pace for 60 minutes. Slow to easy pace for 5 minutes. Finish with gentle streching.

Long Easy Day: Warm up 5-10 minutes at an easy pace. Stretch. Walk at target pace for 30 minutes. Slow to an easy pace for additional 30-90 minutes. Finish with gentle stretching.

Day Off: When walking for weight loss, you should take no more than 1 to 2 days off a week.

Alternate these days to fit your personal weekly schedule