W.A.L.K. (Technique) For Life: A Guide to Better Health

This article outlines the steps of the WALK Technique, a guide to better health through weight and diet awareness, healthy eating patterns, and improved fitness plans.

Do you want to lose weight, eat better, and become healthier? All these goals can be accomplished through an easy-to-use technique called W.A.L.K.

By instituting this approach to healthy eating, fitness, and wellness you can quickly be on your way to living a healthy lifestyle.

What is the WALK Technique?

Watch your weight, what you eat, and risk factors
Adopt a healthy eating and fitness plan
Learn the benefits of healthy living
Keep working toward better health

Watch your weight, what you eat, and risk factors. 

The first step of any fitness plan is evaluating your current health and wellness, starting with your weight. Find your weight and your BMI (body mass index). The BMI is not perfect, but it will provide you with an idea of your target weight range.

But your weight is not the only factor you need to examine. Next, carefully review what you eat in a typical week. Things you want to pay special attention to include how much fast food you consume, how much fried and fatty foods you eat, how much sugar you pack in (partly because sugar is in almost all prepared foods and sauces), and how many empty calories you take in from sugary or high-carb snacks. (Learn more here.)

Finally, you need to understand and evaluate other risk factors that can be silently waiting to adversely affect your health. Answer these questions to determine the level of other risks to your health.

• Do you smoke cigarettes?

• How active are you?

• How much alcohol (or other drugs) do you consume?

• Do you have high blood pressure?

• Is your triglycerides number high?

• How is your glucose level?

• Finally, do you have any hereditary health issues?

If you are overweight (with a BMI greater than 25), don't eat healthy meals and snacks, and have more than one additional risk factor, you must change your lifestyle to save your life -- and adopting the WALK Technique is a step (literally) in the right direction. If you're generally healthy, the WALK Technique can still provide the benefit of improving your overall health and wellness.

Adopt a healthy eating and fitness plan. 

Before making any radical changes to your eating or exercise habits, consult your health practitioner to be certain you are on a safe and gradual path to losing weight and eating better.

Once you've been cleared to proceed, the first thing you must do is purge your pantry of all the very dangerously unhealthy foods and snacks lurking inside. Get rid of all your sugar and bleached rice and flour. Eliminate sugary, and salty snacks and drinks -- especially those made with excess sugars, transfats, seed oils, or high-fructose corn syrup. Eat more fruits and veggies -- both as snacks and with meals. Read more about healthy eating.

If you smoke, quit.

Finally, start a simple fitness plan. There is no need to buy a gym membership -- or even spend any money -- though you could if having a trainer is going to motivate you to workout. You can easily start your fitness plan with walking and some other simple exercises and resistance training. Riding a bicycle is another option, as is swimming.

You should strive for at least 30 minutes of exercise a day, but you can start more slowly and build toward that goal -- and you don't have to do it all in one block of time. Learn more here.

You'll be amazed at how easily you'll lose weight while also seeing a reduction in some of your health risk factors by adopting this type of food and fitness plan.

Learn the benefits of healthy living. 

Besides the obvious benefits of losing weight and reducing some of the risk factors that can adversely affect your health, there are several other important benefits to a healthier lifestyle.

You'll feel better and look better. The combination of losing weight, looking better in front of a mirror, and being happier from the exercise endorphins, will improve your overall sense of happiness and well-being.

Another benefit is you'll tend to be less susceptible to common illnesses, such as colds and other bugs. Eating healthier and regularly working out improves your immune system and makes your body stronger in fighting off infections.

Since implementing the WALK Technique about 20 years ago, I can count on one hand how many times I have been sick -- and this is with children living at home and teaching college students (who are often sickly).

Keep working toward better health. 

You won't become healthier overnight -- well, actually as soon as you start a health and fitness plan, you will be incrementally healthier every single day -- but it will take time to see and feel the full results.

Develop your plan -- and stick to it. Don't let minor setbacks or envious friends and family stop you from achieving your goals. As long as you stay focused on your health goals, you can achieve them.

As you move closer to your goal, consider modifying your plans by trying new foods and fitness techniques. The key is finding a plan that works for you so that you are happy with yourself, improving your health, and not feeling deprived in the process. Diets never work (because they are too constricting), but lifestyle changes do.

Final Thoughts on Improving Health and Fitness

The WALK Technique is a health and fitness plan that just about anyone with a mind toward developing a healthy lifestyle and living a longer life can implement.

You'll have to eliminate bad habits, change your eating and snacking routines, and find time for daily fitness -- but by making these small changes in your life, you'll see vast and long-term improvements.

Start WALKing today!