Let’s be honest. If you do absolutely no exercise during the day, except for walking to and from your car, and moving a beer can to and from your mouth, you are at the bottom of the health ladder. Anything you do at this point will greatly improve the health of your mind and body.

Too many diseases are related to poor lifestyle, and they can all be helped by becoming more active. We’re not saying that walking is going to cure cancer (just help prevent it), but it is going to help you fight off a lot of problems that are caused by being lazy and inactive.

Managing Weight

The entire premise of this guide is walking for weight loss. So what happens when you get your weight under control to a manageable level? Keeping your weight within the healthy limits will lower your risk of sleep apnea, osteoarthritis, type 2 diabetes, cancer, heart problems, and almost any other disease that is directly related to obesity and sedentary lifestyle.

Lower the Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke

You are more at risk for a heart attack or stroke when you are sedentary. Even if you’re not diagnosed with it (when it happens it is too late for a diagnosis anyway), the chance of one happening is far more likely among sedentary people than those who are moderately active.

A Harvard study of 11,000 men showed that brisk walking five hours per week reduced the risk of stroke in participants by half.

A Nurses’ Health Study, which spanned 20 years, of 70,000 women shows that brisk walking can reduce your chance of a heart attack 30-40%.

Improve Mental Health and Self-Esteem

Exercise releases endorphins, you body’s natural pain killers. Brisk walking will release more endorphins than a slow pace, but any walking is better than none.

When you start to walk for weight loss (your diet permitting), you will eventually lose weight and start to feel better about yourself. When your self-esteem improves, life just gets easier and more enjoyable.

The List Goes on and on…

Remember that the body is a machine that consists of mental, spiritual, and physical parts. When you improve one part, you see improvements in the others.

The “vicious cycle” rule applies here.

No exercise means you’re probably heavier than you want to be. If you’re heavy, then you’re overweight and are more likely to succumb to a weight-related disease like Type 2 diabetes. You get diagnosed with one of these diseases, and it stresses you out mentally and financially. The stress turns to depression and depression leads to eating food for comfort (or not eating at all, which is just as bad), and so on and so forth…

When you take your health in one direction, it will lead to more of the same. If you keep a poor lifestyle, expect it to snowball into an even worse lifestyle as the years go by.

If you change your life and start becoming healthier, expect to see the benefits of what being healthy is all about.

Now get up, and start walking! You have no excuse!