City Walks for Fitness

Due to the challenge posed by a diagnosis of the beginnings of osteoarthritis of the right knee, my fitness journey had to change focus. 

Initially, I felt frustrated as, most of the time, satisfactory speed in weight loss efforts is most fruitful when high impact, high intensity workouts are done.   
Interestingly, it is around the time that I feel that I have finally grappled my way to a solution to the above problem that I met an old friend after ages. One could consider that this friend required to lose weight. There is a willingness in the person to lose weight. Yet the only activity consistently done in this direction seems to be a daily 40 minute walk.
What is interesting is that, on that very day, I embarked on longer distance walking. I did not tell my friend that I was planning on a 3-4 hour walk. I did not, at the time, know this would be the time frame-I was merely challenging myself to walk to the nearest mall I knew that sells most items much cheaper. I did tell my friend that the speed of walking should occasionally be sharply increased during a walk, say: one minute normal-walk to 15 seconds of "getting breathless" walk.
For about a month or more I had already done several one hour forty minute walks. I was a bit sore-lasting roughly a couple of hours-after the first one but have never looked back since. This just stresses the need to do relaxed stretching and limbering up before a walk, especially a long one. One might, like I did, think that just walking is enough of a warm up. Avoid the risks of cramps and catches by studying and practising pre-workout routines.
Once upon a time I thought that walking was a boring way to lose weight and I would certainly go insane if I had to walk round and round the same perimeter day after day.
My "city walks" are anything but boring: you chance upon all kinds of challenges and innumerable surprise delights for the senses all the time: birds of all kinds, people going about their daily life stories, rapturous interludes in sylvan havens and so much more.
At first I took a relatively long time to get out there on my walk. Now it's a breeze. If it looks like rain I carry my umbrella and it serves as a walking stick, is elegant and most of all fun to twirl! 
I do try and carry drinking water. 
Wallet is most optional. After you get used to the joy of the walks, it's a self set challenge to not carry money. 
Fitness is not only abut the body: it builds moral and mental muscle.
A typical city walk demands mindfulness for safety: it's not for the namby pamby.You can fall into manholes, pits, get hit by vehicles, cut on barbed wire, get mugged, etc., etc. 
Let me wind down with a word about post walk cool-downs.
1. Do stretch and loosen muscles as soon as possible after the long walk.
2. Do continue to keep yourself hydrated in you live in a warm/hot climate.
3. Do have your post-walk snack/meal as soon as possible: include a fistful of each important thing-protein, carbs, fruit/veg.
4. Don't have a cold shower right after your walk if you live in a hot /warm climate. A hot shower later will relax any remaining muscle tiredness.
5. Do be amazed at how quickly the body recovers and you can do your mundane household chores with a spring in your step and a song on your lip.
One last word of caution: do not use ear phones to listen to music, etc. This workout requires extreme mindfulness.

Happy walking!

Edwin Thoo

When we were in Malaysia, we had joined Celebrity Fitness in Midvalley. The gym offered all kinds of free classes and we had taken up Beginner's Yoga. However, the instructors for this course at that time were not very pleasant at all: they used to come up to us and try and force our bodies into the asanas.
One Chinese New Year, they were on leave and the substitute, Edwin Thoo, made a great impression on us although he was very unassuming. And so we shifted to his Vinyasa class. 
Though he had warned us that this was not for beginners, we could cope as, somehow, his voice, for one thing, though not loud or shrill, was audible and comprehensible to us. Due to his calmness of nature, even though he mainly sat on the podium and instructed, it was easy to try the instructions.
His classes were always full, a tribute to his qualities as a Guru. He had some simple rules: we had to be there much before time. He would also enter earlier though after the class had more or less filled. This time was spent stretching or practising moves.
The class began with either seated or standing meditation, followed by some Suryanamaskaram moves. Like many other Hindu Indians, we had some exposure to Yoga when we were youngsters. The middle part of the class would be slightly challenging and then he would swiftly make us move into easier poses until we wound down with Savasana. This was followed by a seated meditation to end the session.
We also joined his Partner Yoga classes. These were excellent for a couple although we were the only couple: most of the class was young girls! Doing the Yoga Poses together can act as a wonderful stretching and massage session. There is laughter together as we fumble. It is excellent therapy for couples. 
So, if you are in Malaysia and want to do some Yoga, you must look for this wonderful instructor.

Post Work-Out Binges

1. You're a work-out newbie. When you move from an almost zero level of physical activity to any higher level, you're bound to feel hungrier. Your body is burning its fuel and is calling for more fuel. It is, quite rightly, asking to be fed. It needs to be fed. 

“Your cells are literally hungry for fuel after a hard workout because you’ve used up a lot of your carbohydrate stores,” Wein says. Carbohydrates are stored in muscle as glycogen, and the harder you work out the more you burn, she explains.

2. You have not had a proper work-out. 

There is no question that when an indivdiual can do 1 hour of signficant aerobic exercise on a regular basis, he or she will want to eat less food.

If you're eating fairly right, you might not be pushing yourself out of your workout comfort zone. If you work out properly and regularly, you'll find your cravings reducing dramatically. 

Who says sports make bigger appetite? Results conducted by researchers found regular exercise can actually reduce the appetite. With regular exercise your body will issue a satiety signal that can defeat hunger.

The body produces in a healthy way the stuff that makes you reach for the wrong foods-too much sugar or too much carb. 

Exercising helps to normalize fluctuations in your blood sugar levels

and in doing so you won't get that starving feeling as often.

Even so, you have to eat post-workout.

WHAT’S THE POINT OF EATING AFTER EXERCISE? It’s all about two things: recovery and storage. You need to recover the losses you undertook during the exercise, and your body is simply better at storing that recovery fuel right after your workout. Sure, you can eat later—but the benefits won’t be as good. The sports medicine pros at ESPN explain it: “athletes need carbohydrate and fluid to replace glycogen and water losses during the exercise. The muscles store more glycogen immediately after exercise than they do later.” Simple, no?

3. You have not researched the dos and don'ts of working out. You should eat something in roughly the 90 minute window on both sides of a workout.   Your homework for today is to find out more abut all this :D


TIP: Ask about L-Glutamine. If your doctor does not contra-indicate its use, you might find that, combined with a good workout, it reduces your bottomless pit syndrome.

So what should you eat?

Pre-Workout

Something light yet sustaining roughly 90 minutes before working out. You don't want to feel too full. Being uncomfortably full will interfere with your workout and might even be quite unpleasant. It will all depend on your individual digestive system. For one kind of person it can range from nothing to a boiled egg or small glass of milk. For another it may range from an egg with a toast or even that plus a piece of fruit and a small glass of milk.
If you need to lose a lot of weight and can go without food without discomfort, workout on an empty stomach . 

Though many athletes eat before training, some scientists say that if you really want to get rid of more fat, you should skip the pre-workout snack.

Have your post-workout snack though. 

Post-Workout

Within 90 minutes of a good workout, eat something. 

Create supplements The body needs a high-protein diet for muscle building. However, relying on supplements is not the answer. The best option for a post workout DIY supplement is to take the watery part of curd (that is very rich in proteins), chop a banana and apple into it and put it in the blender. It's a perfect combination of proteins and carbohydrates. Not to forget, the apple is rich in fibre.

If you have a good metabolism or if you know you will be regular with your proper workouts, and you don't have huge amounts of weight to lose, you can get away with almost anything ( a reasonable amount!). If not, have about a handful of something healthy. I used to carry a banana as my post workout snack and then hit the road for my 30 minute walk home. Once home I had my meal. When in doubt stick with a low fat liquid snack, ideally, a small helping of low fat chocolate milk. 

New study finds lowfat chocolate milk is effective post-exercise recovery aid for soccer players Chocolate milk's 'natural' muscle recovery benefits match or may even surpass a specially designed carbohydrate sports drink It is better not to avoid the post-workout snack. 

Disclaimer: I am not a health or fitness expert. I am merely sharing what I do and what suits me.