We all know that walking is good exercise and helps to burn off those extra calories but there are lots of other health benefits, as well. It has long been known that walking will also reduce your risk of heart attack, stroke and cancer and that it will help to lower your blood pressure. As a load bearing activity, regular walking will increase your bone mass and lowers the risk, and effects, of osteoporosis.
Recent studies have found that several other benefits result from walking. You will have more energy, reduced stress levels, better sleep patterns and the muscles in your legs and abdomen will be strengthened. Walking up and down stairs can produce even more beneficial results and you should find an area that includes stairs as part of your daily routine.
Osteoporosis, a disease which affects 1.4 million Canadians, primarily women over the age of 50, is the cause of approximately 100,000 bone fractures every year. The cost of treating just these fractures is $1.3 billion.
Arthritis affects approximately 4 million people in Canada about one in seven people and costs our health care system about $5 billion per year.
According to the Mayo Clinic's Women's Health Source abdominal exercises will do nothing to flatten your stomach. Those "crunches" that we see advertised, so often, on TV are great for improving posture and strengthening muscles, but they will do very little to get rid of the fat covering those muscles. To do that, you need to consume fewer calories than you burn.
With the warm summer months fast approaching, so are the summer bugs. When the bugs start to really bug you, here are a few tips to keep them away:
* To discourage ants from climbing on your picnic or patio table, fill some empty cans with water and place each table leg in one of the cans.
* To help get rid of fruit flies, put out a dish of apple cider vinegar. The flies are attracted to the vinegar and will fly into it and drown.
* Carpenter ants and other bugs love to nest in old rotting wood. Clean up old branches and scraps of wood and, if you have wood for a fireplace, store it as far away from your home as possible.
* To get rid of wasps, place a jar of water with a small hole in the cover close to the area affected. Spread a little honey around the hole both on the inside and the outside of the cover. The wasps will gravitate to the honey and will follow it into the jar where they will be trapped.
* To keep silverfish and cockroaches away make sure that your basement is dry and fix any dripping drains or pipes under your sinks.
1. High income bracket
2. Ian Fleming (James Bond series author)
3. Short of breath
4. Peace on earth
5. I bent over backwords for you
6. Dennis the Menace