Customer Reviews

ShapeWalking: Six Easy Steps to Your Best Body

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Marilyn L. Bach, Ph. D. is a fitness consultant and Lorie Schleck, M.A., P.T., is a fitness consultant. Together, they have developed a total fitness program to encourage a healthier life. There are six main chapters/steps:

1. Making the Decision - Deciding to "fitness walk."

2. Getting Started with Fitness Walking - Target Zone information and Creating a Custom Program.

3. Fitness Walking Plus - Incorporating toning into your walking

4. Strength Training - A 15 and 30-minute strength training program.

5. Target Toning - Toning exercises that will enhance your walking.

6. A Week in the Life of a ShapeWalker - Liz, Tom and Jodi share their secrets and you can see charts of walking activities. Throughout this book, you will find pictures of toning exercises and walking techniques.

At the end of the book, you can find a Fitness Walking Record. I also found I could keep track of my walking in a fitness journal. This section of the book is essential to keep you focused and motivated. Before keeping a fitness journal I could not see where I was going or where I had been. When you keep track of your progress, it is highly motivational. At that point, you keep increasing your knowledge and you find out what works.

If you are continuously working on your New Year's resolutions, this book can give you new goals for the coming year. I tend to want to start new projects in the summer, although walking is a year-round activity you can enjoy in any season. I started becoming more serious about my walking over 51 weeks ago and it was the breakthrough I needed. When you only stretch and do Pilates and Yoga, you can see good results in muscle tone, but it is the walking or other aerobic exercises that take you to a new level in your fitness. I found that just doing one or the other is definitely not as effective as doing aerobics and toning. That made my walking easier and made my toning sessions much more enjoyable because I had more endurance and a new level of confidence.

Not only does walking oxygenate the body, it helps you to feel less stiff, can reduce bodily pain and will definitely help you lose inches. Since I started my walking program I've lost about 11 ½ inches. I did notice that when you gain muscle, your weight takes a while to regulate and then drops week by week. This was also mentioned on some of the makeover shows on TV, but is rarely mentioned in health books.

Whether you are just starting a walking program or have decided to incorporate target toning, this book has a lot to offer. This is the new edition and not only does this book help you develop a walking program, the authors give special attention to the abs, butt, thighs and arms.

What will you need? Walking shoes, an exercise band and free weights.

Some of the helpful items in this book include:

Advice for various weather conditions.
Advice about heart-rate monitoring.
How to get rid of cellulite - no creams needed.
Ideas about keeping a Food Journal
Developing a Plan for a Lifetime of Fitness
Working out in your Target Zone

ShapeWalking may encourage you to take a 10-minute walk before lunch or you may find yourself looking forward to walking on your treadmill while watching a new movie. When I started my walking program, I didn't push myself too much and this seems to be why I was able to keep up with the program. If you burn out at the start by overdoing it, the result will be a rejection of healing. Healing should be a fun process and when you keep track of your inches lost, you will love walking. You might also enjoy wearing a pedometer at first to see how many steps you are talking. When I saw how little I was walking at first; that made me very aware of how much I needed to move.

Winter Tips: Layer your clothes, look for waterproof walking shoes, plan your route before you leave the house. Use Walk Away the Pounds workouts if it is icy outside.

The most important thing is to just keep moving. When you realize how good it feels when you do exercise, you can never go back to not exercising. A few hidden benefits of walking include:

Aleviates Depression
Releases Endorphins
Reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease
Helps to Clear the Mind and gives you a sense of well-being
Boosts Your Self-Esteem
Prevents the loss of bone density
Helps to Maintain Good Posture
Controls your Weight
Increases Muscle Definition
Reduces Stress
Lessens Stiffness (especially if you are also stretching)
Encourages deeper breathing
Gives you the energy you need to maintain a healthy existence

Also:

Encourages healthy eating habits (this really seems to happen because once you are committed to exercise, healthy eating will naturally follow.)

~The Rebecca Review

ShapeWalking: Six Easy Steps To Your Best Body by fitness consultant professionals Marilyn L. Bach and Lorie Schleck is a straightforward , "user friendly", and very highly recommended fitness guide to customizing an easy-to-follow exercise routine with the goal of improved overall health and fitness. Enhanced with illustrative photographs for recommended exercises; step-by-step instructions; charts to record personal progress; and a great deal more fill the pages of this upbeat and simple regimen guide especially designed and intended to help people of all fitness levels get into shape.

A good book for anyone who wants to get moving and look and feel better. The book could use a chapter on the need for changing our present laws which contribute to Americans' obesity and sedentary lifestyle. Ideally, such a chapter would discuss poor zoning regulations (leading to a lack of walkable neighborhoods), agricultural subsidies (leading to unnaturally cheap sugar, corn syrup, and the like) and laws favoring car use over walking and transit. Maybe in the next edition.