Fresh Start for Weight Loss: 15-Minute Walking Workout | Ep 50

Grab 1,500 steps in 15 minutes with this indoor or outdoor low impact walking workout. 

You’re busy and tired, but want a fresh start. Come for a walk where I share tiny movement “blocks,” simple food tweaks to make that fresh start easier. 

Also, grab the FREE Fresh Start guide + printable block worksheets at yourwalkingpodcast.com.

You can do this as an indoor walking workout, on a treadmill or walking pad, or outside. If you’re walking outside, there’s a bell at the halfway point. 

If you want to walk to lose weight, have more energy, get in a better mood, or just be reminded to keep moving, press play.

I also somehow end up talking about dancing to Lady Gaga, being a “carbetarian” vegetarian who didn’t eat vegetables, and chocolate chips in oatmeal. Because, why not?

Tap Follow/Subscribe so next week’s walk is already waiting for you when you need it.

Transcript

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Starting any kind of plan can feel like way too much, so we're not doing that today. We're talking about blocks instead, and those are little movement blocks and easy food blocks that you can slide right into your life. You're not subtracting things, but you're adding to it, which is my favorite thing. You can get fitter, feel better, and still keep the cookies.'cause I love cookies. This is exactly how I started when I lost over 80 pounds, blocks like this. Not some huge perfect plan. Going to start at a warmup pace. It's nice and steady. Not too hard. You can do this walk inside or outside. If you're walking inside, you can march in place. You can walk up and down your hallway, on a treadmill, on a walking pad. As long as you're moving. And if you're doing this outside, there's a bell at the halfway point. That way you know when to turn around, if you want to head back. Take a deep breath into your nose and exhale through your mouth. Big exhale. Drop those shoulders away from your ears. Roll 'em back a little bit now. Big circles back. Creak, creak or clunk. Clunk. I think mine clunk today. And they bring it forward. Big rolls forward all the way up. All the way down. All the way back. Let your hands loosen up. You can shake 'em a little bit. It is amazing how tight our hands get sometimes. And I'm Helen and this is Walking and Talking with Helen. It's a podcast where we walk together in real time and I coach you, go faster, go slower, and give you some walking cues. Easy pace, still warming it up. Check out your feet. Make sure they're not gripping the bottom of your shoes. And when you breathe in, you want to make sure your stomach is relaxed. That way your lungs can fill up all the way and really get that oxygen in there. I'm obsessed with oxygen. Okay. We're going to nudge the pace up a bit. Follow the music. It's like you're walking through a store and you sort of know what you want. But then as you're walking through this store, you see some Legos and you realize that's what we're talking about today. Lego blocks or Lego bricks, movement blocks, food blocks, bricks, same thing. By the end of your week, you're going to build something really cool with the movement and food blocks, and that will be like your beautiful new Lego creation. Hold onto that pace. Follow the beat. It's okay to dance. Nobody cares. And dancing spreads joy and there's not a lot of joy around. Even smile at some dogs, if you're outside. The owners won't smile back, but the dogs will. Each little bit of movement you do every day is like one brick. It's one movement block. The block doesn't have to be a full workout. It can be tiny, and that's the fun part of it. It could be a couple of minutes of yoga. And I do like Yoga with Adriene. Probably 'cause of Benji, and maybe it's just five squats. Maybe it's the walk you're doing right now. But on a rough day, your block might only be dancing to your favorite song for five minutes. And that's what I did actually before I got ready to record this. I danced to Lady Gaga's Abracadabra. That still counts. Everything counts. Stay with that pace. It's a little bit faster than warmup. When I lost over 80 pounds, it wasn't because I suddenly became the super disciplined person doing perfect workouts'cause I'm not a perfect workout person. It was a bunch of these little blocks over and over, and some days more, some days less, but they all stacked up. Moving every day is the best thing you can do for your health. And even just a little bit of movement, is always better than nothing. And on days where you're really busy, on a messy day, think about what is your bare minimum? What is the smallest block you can do that day? And that's the beauty of the worksheet that you can download is that even if it's two minutes or five minutes at the end of the week, you'll see that you filled up a bunch of little blocks. And you know what that does for our heads and our mental state? It shows us that we did something for our bodies.'cause we always focus on the negative, what we didn't do. But these movement blocks let you focus on what you actually did do. Keep your breathing strong and deep. Maybe your bare minimum is just a couple of minutes of walking in place. Maybe it's going out with me on one of my shorter walks. Maybe it's pushups against a counter. If you hit that bare minimum on a rough day, you know that's your win. Everything else is a bonus. We will take the little wins where we can get them. Roll those shoulders back again now. Just get any tension out, roll them forward. M ake sure your arms are relaxed and you're not stiffening at the elbows. And then just find the beat and how it feels for your feet to hit the pavement or the floor, the carpet Let the music move you. Take this moment for you. I always like to say that take this moment for you and your time. Nobody can bother you here. Keep your breathing going now. Okay, now we're going to pick up some pace. We're going to do a 60 second push. I want you to go quite a bit faster. You're going to wake up those legs. Shorter, quicker steps. Let your arms help. We are going to hold this for 60 seconds. If you start saying to yourself, this is too hard, I should stop. Well answer with, I can do anything for 60 seconds. One time I got myself on a rollercoaster by timing the scariest part, I thought I could handle this for 60 seconds. Same thing here. We're almost there now. Come on, push it. And breathe. Okay, you got 10 more seconds. I want you to push it. And slow it down. You're coming back to a strong, steady pace like you've got things to do, but you can still talk to a friend or you can still talk to me. Shake your hands out again. Make sure your glutes are strong, your legs are strong. Pay attention to the way your feet hit the ground, find the beat, and just kind of groove with it. Let's groove tonight. We can use that same block idea with food. You want more of the solid blocks like protein, veggies, water, fiber. That's your foundation. That's the bottom of the beautiful thing you're building with your Legos. And then you've got the fun blocks because I will never ever give up the fun blocks. The chips, the chocolate. A little bit of wine, whatever you genuinely love.'cause we don't want to cut those out. That's not sustainable for most people. Nor would I want to live like that. So think about the bottom of your tower has a good foundation and you add a few smaller blocks to the top. So I was a vegetarian. I mean, I still am, but I was a vegetarian who didn't eat vegetables and I don't exactly know how that went, but I was more of a carbetarian. Which is a word I made up. Anything, pasta or bread or sugar I was in, I didn't really eat a lot of vegetables. I didn't eat that much fruit and I should have known better. Before that whole phase of my life, I was a fitness instructor and I studied nutrition a lot when I was really young. But you know what? It is what it is. It's part of life and I just made better choices later. So what really helped me though, was not cutting out the fun stuff. It was adding more of the solid blocks so I didn't feel like I was starving and would raid the pantry in the middle of the night. So before you worry about cutting things out, try adding one solid block, some protein at breakfast, vegetables at lunch, a glass of water between coffee. Maybe fit in some fiber, chia seeds, flax seeds, beans when you can. Now, when I first started, I had chocolate chips in my oatmeal every breakfast because I thought every day that starts with chocolate has to be a good day. It did seem to work. And starting my day with chocolate was a really great way for me to set the tone for the day. But I also had fiber and protein, because I always add milk to my oatmeal. Keep your breathing going nice and strong. Think solid blocks, fun blocks, and if you want help thinking through those blocks, I've got a simple guide with printable sheets and it's totally free and you get it at yourwalkingpodcast.com. Stay with me now. It's still that strong pace. You can still talk. Check your shoulders, make sure they're down. Sometimes we let them creep all the way up, so bring 'em down. In fact, you can bring it up really high as tight as you can, and then drop 'em down as low as you can. Let's do it one more time. Why not? bring it all the way up, up, up, up, up, around, up to your ears, aaaah drop 'em back down again, and then you can really feel that tension release. Stay steady with your breathing. Slow it down a little bit. Soften that pace. Didn't this walk go fast today? Maybe it was just me. Big breath in through your nose now and exhale through your mouth like you're fogging up a mirror. Just keep your hands loose. Let's roll our shoulders one more time backwards. Big circles and yes, I always start backwards and no, I don't know why. It's a habit. Big, big, big rolls. My right shoulder crunches more than my left. It clunk. Clunk. Roll it forward Now. Big, big, big rolls all the way up, all the way down, all the way around. Let's do a tiny mood check. See if you're a little less cranky now than when you started. I was cranky. But exercise helps me feel better and less cranky. We're not chasing perfect ever. We're chasing slightly less grumpy and slightly more alive, and that's really all we can do for the day, right? That's our goal. Less grumpy, more alive, more movement. Pick one small thing for later today that you can do. One more movement block. Even if it's just two minutes or one food block, like adding a vegetable or some protein or sneaking in that fiber. You just finished a nice solid movement block here. Make sure you put it in your downloadable. And also you can use an app like Goodnotes that you can use on your iPad or your phone, and you can actually just mark 'em right there on the worksheet. And if at the end of the day your brain tries to tell you that what you did wasn't enough, it's wrong. These little blocks done over and over and over are exactly what moved the needle. We don't always have time for a big, hour long workout, but if we fit these little movements in throughout the day, it's amazing what that ends up at, at the end of the day. How much movement you actually did. If this helps save this episode as one of your go-to blocks. That way you don't have to think next time and tap, follow, or subscribe wherever you're listening, so that way the next walk is waiting for you when you're ready. Take another deep breath into your nose now. Feel how good it feels to be alive and to move your body and exhale through your mouth. Don't forget to stretch us a little bit when you're done, especially your calves, and I'll see you next time.