Stop Sciatica & Back Pain

One of the exercises we recommend for helping with back pain and sciatica is walking - good old, plain and simple walking. It may even seem too obvious - life wasn’t meant to be that straightforward right?

Well actually Yes, sometimes it is.

The bonus is if you do enough walking you can also lose a useful amount of weight and improve your overall fitness, as well as helping your back.

There is a great story below about a woman who was overweight big time and had back problems. Eventually she started walking, only a short distance at first, but gradually increasing and after a period not only did she lose a huge amount of weight, but her back problems went away too.

Reality Check
If you’re an average person in an OECD country such as the US, Canada, UK, Australia, Germany, France etc you are not exercising enough.

The modern sedentary lifestyle is bad for you and bad for your back.

At the end of the day it’s your choice what you do with your time. If you invest in the effort of exercise you will most likely get similar benefits to the woman in the story.

Remember:
In the long run regular, moderate exercise of the right type and a good diet and are two of the keys to a long healthy life and a healthy back.

There are also specific back exercises you can do to help your back and stop sciatica.

A story about losing weight and losing back pain through walking
Claire Elliot is from Sutton Coldfield, in the West Midlands of the UK.

Claire, a mum-of-two, was overweight and suffering crippling back pain, then 18 months ago she started walking and has now shed eight stone - hiking her way back to health.

She was a size 28 at her biggest and is now a size 14, dropping from 21st 6lb to 13st 6lb in the process. She achieved her transformation after joining a slimming club and taking long daily walks.

“I have never been as slim as this - and my body has changed beyond all recognition,” she says happily.

For Claire weight problems started in childhood.and she was a size 22 by the time of her wedding, in August 1997.

Then when she later got pregnant with her first child James, she used it as an excuse to eat what she liked. Everyone assured me the weight would fall off afterwards, but it didn’t and I went up to a size 28.”

Three years later, Claire was thrilled to be pregnant again, but by now the weight was affecting her mood. “Last time, I’d been proud of my baby bump - but this time I felt massive,” she recalls.

“Even though I was miserable, I reassured myself that I was still healthy. I’d never suffered high blood pressure or fluid retention.”

Then over the next three years, although she managed to shed about three stone, she was in too much pain to exercise and was bothered by sever sciatica and back pain.

Eventually she determined to do something, and joined WeightWatchers at which time she was 17st 8lb.

Immediately, Claire started a healthy eating plan and took up walking. “Every morning I’d set off in loose jogging bottoms and baggy tops. Initially, I could barely make it to the end of the road, but I improved quickly.

“I went from half a mile, to one, then two, until I was walking five miles a day and I dropped from a size 20 so by the summer I was a size 14.”

Claire realised there were other benefits, too. Her back pain vanished and the regular exercise boosted her mood - enabling her to reduce her prescription medication for depression.

Claire is now down to 13st 6lb and still walks every day. She says “My legs are half the size they used to be, my bum has just disappeared, my arms are thinner and even my cheekbones are showing”.

So the moral of this story is walking is great - remember there are also specific back exercises you can do to help stop back pain.