How Can a Pedometer Be Used to Improve Your Health?

What is a pedometer and how can it be used to improve your health? Pedometers can be bought very cheaply from under $20 and can be used to help you to increase your physical activity without going to the gym simply by increasing the amount of walking you do every day. You can buy a walking or jogging pedometer, depending on how you will be using it, a basic pedometer to just count your steps or a more expensive model that has a range of other functions.

Lots of of us dislike exercising resulting in putting on weight and problems with our health including diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure. Starting an exercise program is very easy, it's keeping it up that's so difficult! One way to get more exercise without having to join a gym is to walk more every day and a basic pedometer can be used to achieve this.

A pedometer is a piece of equipment which will help you keep track of how far you walk. By targeting a realistic daily step rate you will exercise more each day and so lose weight and become much fitter. Research have shown that using a pedometer is effective in increasing daily calories burned. Twenty six trials, which were reviewed in the Journal of American Medicine, showed that the use of a pedometer was effective in increasing the daily physical activity of participants. A typical study concluded that step rates were increased by around 2000 steps compared to participants not using a pedometer. This number of steps is equivalent to an extra mile walked daily and and also represents a 25% increase in activity This is a significant increase and will probably have a huge influence on the participants health and weight.

An important consideration to to remember is to establish realistic goals. Setting a step target daily was proved to have a major effect on the level of physical activity. Those who achieved their goal daily increased their activity and experienced more of the benefits, which included a reduction in weight and blood pressure. However levels of blood sugar and cholesterol appear to have been unaffected.

The use of a pedometer may be very effective in increasing your physical activity without having to go to the gym or investing in exercise equipment. Walking more every day will have enormous benefits in achieving a healthy weight and your general fitness and You can monitor this easily with a simple pedometer. You can walk instead of using exercise machines to keep fit and healthy. Pedometers are inexpensive and straightforward to use and can be bought for less than $20.