The DIY Diet

Over the past six months or so I’ve been seeing people walking along the streets and sidewalks using ski pole-like sticks as they walk.

I wondered what they were doing, so I decided to do some research on the Internet.

I learned that the people were doing Nordic ski walking. As I read the material I got very excited about trying the technique myself.

I lived in the country when I was growing up. I’d often walk across the field to my cousin’s house or down the gravel road to my neighbor’s house.

At Lake Vermilion, where our cottage was located, we’d go on family walks down to the end of the point or to the little marina not far away.

I always had to have a walking stick. It was more like a staff because it was generally as tall or taller than I was. It was nothing more than a lightweight sapling or a dead stick of some kind that I’d found lying on the ground in the woods.

It was good for a lot of things including leaning on it when I needed to rest. Now that I think about it, it gave me more secure footing as I walked over the irregular terrain of the field, the woods, and along the gravel roads.

A few years ago my cousin, Jerry, gave me a couple of diamond willow saplings that he’d cut into the staff-height walking sticks. I’d had them in my garage ever since, intending sometime to take sandpaper to them and make nice walking sticks out of them. Thinking about it is as far as I got.

After reading about Nordic ski walking, I took out the diamond willow walking staffs, cut them to the proper Nordic ski walking length, added a hand strap to the top, and a rubber cane tip to the bottom of each.

The research I read said that the length of each pole should be 70% of your height in inches. I’m 68 inches tall so my ski walking sticks needed to be 47-1/2 inches long.

Since the "official" walking sticks cost $70 a pair and up, I wanted to try this walking technique before spending my hard-earned money on fancy sticks.

I set out to try ski walking with my homemade sticks. People I’d meet would stop me and comment about my neat walking sticks. They were pretty rough-looking, and the sticks themselves were crooked.

I was intending to use them just until I could decide if I liked Nordic ski walking — if I liked it, I intended to order more "official" style sticks.

I took to Nordic ski walking immediately and can’t say enough good about it. There are so many benefits.

The benefit that caught my attention right away was that this style of walking increases your energy consumption from 20% to as much as 46% over walking without sticks.

For someone on a diet like me, that meant I’d be easily burning more calories. And, I love being able to exercise without the intense physical workouts that the young people favor.

Nordic ski walking works for people of all ages and physical conditions. Rather than me explaining all of the benefits, let me direct you to the experts: Mr. Pete Edwards, founder, owner, and coach, American Nordic Walking System and Ski Walking Poles.

You can obtain information about the Nordic walking technique from the About.com website. Also check out the International Nordic Walking Association for everything you probably need to know about the sport.

Being of Finnish heritage, I’m proud to say that Nordic ski walking got its start in Finland. Give it a try. You can do it anywhere, even down the street where you live - that’s where I do it - though I’m looking forward to walking along the North Shore of Lake Superior next week when I make a trek to my old stomping grounds.