Walking Essentials
If you follow me on Instagram, you know that walking is a huge part of my life since I quit drinking. I thought I would take a minute to share the top 3 questions I get asked about most:
What watch do you use to monitor you heart rate?
What shoes do you wear?
What treadmill do you have?
I will do a separate post about my actual walking strategy, but these are the items that I use and love.
My Watch - Garmin Forerunner
It took me a longggggg time to find a basic watch that tracked: steps, heart rate AND still took time - that did NOT connect to my phone or send notifications. I did NOT want an Apple watch for this notification reason. (During my walk, I did not want to get interrupted when I first started and reco you do the same! If someone really needs something, they will call.) I didn’t want a Fit Bit because it did not tell time and I needed another app. So after lots of searching, I found this Garmin brand. I bought a basic model from Amazon and at set up, just declined the connection with my phone. It is perfect and holds a charge for months - not kidding! It took me a minute to figure out how to change the clock face and it isn’t super intuitive at first, but it’s simple and easy and took me idk 5 minutes to figure it out. I love it. I wear it every single day. It does exactly what I want: counts steps, heart rate and tells time. It also has a GPS so if you walk outside, the step count is accurate as well without cell data.
My shoes - Saucony Women's Triumph 22
Before I quit drinking, I had super bad plantar fasciitis It was awful from all the inflammation I had FROM ALCOHOL (but I had no idea this was the cause, until it healed about 6m after I quit). I went to a podiatrist and he recommended I go to a local running store to have my shoes fit to my feet - so that is what I did. I alsp reco you do the same. I tried a few different brands, I walked on a treadmill and they watched how my feet hit the ground and recommended shoes based on my own patterns. This is the brand that works for ME. Your reco might be different. I have tried both the Triumph 22 and 23 but I like the 22 best. For daily wear, I also wear OOFOS 99% of the time and LOVE this brand of sandal - both of these shoes made a HUGE difference in my pain. If you have any kind of foot/ankle pain I recommend the OOFOS brand wholeheartedly!
3. My treadmill - Nordic Track X24
I bought this during covid in 2020 when all the gyms closed - so let me start by saying this sat basically unused until I quit drinking for 3 years. When I bought it, I thought I would use the incline but now that I have found walking and weightloss, I don’t. I walk on a flat surface 100% of the time. In fact, some people (ME!) get bigger legs when they walk on an incline! That said, now that I know what I know and only walk on a flat surface, this is probably not what I would buy today. You do not need a fancy treadmill. Just a walking pad works! Just walk in the zone 2 HR zone (more to come) and that is all that matters! I am sharing this brand and model only bc I am asked almost weekly. It works fine and it is 6 years old! You do need something that keeps you walking fast and I find when I walk outside, I walk much slower. I also like to listen to music and Instagram and walk (hence why I have a lot of spelling errors) and I don’t do that while I walk outside bc I like to be aware of my surrounding.
Walking is the best! Stay tuned on more about my walking plan that helped me lose 35-40+ pounds!
Xo,
Jackie
