Bad walking habits to avoid in your weight-loss journey

Bad walking habits can stop you from attaining your goals in your weight-loss journey.

There are a lot of things to keep in mind when starting a weight-loss journey. Avoiding bad walking habits, eating behaviors, incorporating different exercises, and making necessary lifestyle choices are all part of the deal.

One of the easier and more accessible lifestyle changes is adding more steps into your day-to-day routine. Getting approximately 10,000 steps into your workout routine can help you get your ideal body in a short amount of time.

Walking can severely help you achieve your goal. You can maximize the advantages of this fun exercise by avoiding a few bad walking habits.

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Bad walking habits you can avoid

1) Bad posture

Disadvantages of having a bad posture (Image sourced via Pexels/Nataliya Vaitkevich)

Maintaining an improper posture while walking is one bad walking habit. Leaning forward too much or breaking your back by excessively arching it may cause various spinal cord related issues.

Another major disadvantage of having a bad posture is that you can develop a belly pooch, which is the opposite of what you're working towards in a weight-loss journey.

2) Taking your water bottle with you

Carry your water bottle with you. (Image sourced via Pexels/Ketut Subiyanto)

To beat the heat during your walk, it's understandable that you might want to take your favorite bottle of water along with you.

It's, however, not duly supported by many fitness researchers. Holding the bottle for a long duration may cause swelling, and you will also have trouble balancing your way through the workout.

To avoid this bad walking habit, it's recommended to invest in a waist holster to kill two birds with one stone - firstly to quench your thirst and also to address the negative consequences of holding a heavy bottle of water.

3) Poor footwear choices

Importance of wearing proper shoes (Image sourced via Pexels/Ketut Subiyanto)

Making bad shoe choices is also one of the bad walking habits to avoid. It's one of the main reasons behind many walking difficulties that people face during their weight loss journey.

The focus while buying your new walking shoes should be that the weight of your body is spread evenly across the feet.

Another thing to look out for is comfort. Walking thousands of steps in a day can be a tiring task. Hence, wearing uncomfortable shoes can bring you down and make your progress towards achieving your goals slower.

4) Never forget wearing your sunscreen

Importance of sunscreen (Image sourced via Pexels/Pindel Media)

Another bad walking habit that most people make is choosing to go on walks in the morning.

Walking under the sun for two hours without using sunscreen can have a significant increase in risk of developing serious diseases like skin cancer. Applying a high SPF sunscreen regularly can save you from possible skin damages.

5) Not moving your arms the right way

Swing your arms the right way. (Image sourced via Pexels/Mathias Reding)

Walking requires free and proper arm movement to maintain appropriate balance in the body.

Apporpriate arm movements also aid in determining one's gait and rate of motion. Another bad walking habit is moving your arms too slowly or quickly, which can result in postural difficulties during your walk.

6) Making your steps too short or too long

Importance of the right sized steps (Image sourced via Pexel/Andrea Piacquadio)

Not taking big enough steps is another bad walking habit that can result in an ineffective workout session. Make sure you take the right-sized steps to avoid this.

Another bad walking habit to avoid is making your strides inappropriately long. It's observed that when you increase the speed of your walks, you can often end up overstriding.

Overstriding makes you sweat but beyond that, there's a long list of negatives that accompany abnormally longer strides.

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Walking can prove to be one of your best friends in your weight-loss journey if you make appropriate use of it.

Now that you know some of the bad walking habits that people tend to make while walking, try to incorporate the correct techniques in your routine to milk out the maximum benefits from this workout.