Walking for fitness is as easy and convenient as putting one foot in front of the other. Almost anyone can do it, it helps shift that stubborn fat, increases your overall level of fitness and can create the same ‘high’ as jogging can (without the unnecessary stress on joints – or the boredom).  2500 years ago, Hippocrates stated that walking was the best medicine and as a form of exercise it is now endorsed by most of the world’s leading experts in obesity. Of course, lets not forget that walking is also one of the most cost effective forms of exercise since all you really need to fork out for is a good pair of trainers or walking shoes. Yay!

So while we are bigging up walking, here are a few more incentives for you to get those shoes on and get out there:

• Walking at a good pace for an hour will burn off about 260 calories
• The WHO recommends walking as a fantastic way to “lose weight, lower cholesterol, slow down aging, increase muscle and bone strength, flexibility and balance and increase stamina.”
• Done regularly, walking will slim down the thighs, calves, bum and tummy area.
• Because walking is a weight-bearing exercise it’s super good for counteracting the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis. Bones are very much like muscles in the way that they grow stronger and a consistent walking routine will aid bone, muscle and tissue growth and renewal.
• Walking every day for 6 months can reduce deep abdominal fat – this is the nasty fat that settles around your internal organs and can significantly add to the risk of cancer and heart disease.
• It makes you feel great!

Walking for 2 hours a day is a very good thing – if you can motivate yourself to do it every day that is. Walking for 1 hour a day is also good – even better if you can stick to a consistent and regular routine. Walking for no hours a day is a bad thing as I’m finding out as my weight loss slows right down and my energy levels slide to the floor.

I still have the bad chest thing going on which has severely curtailed any kind of exercise but that’s being treated with inhalers and steroids so I should be on the mend again very soon. I certainly can’t let it affect me for another 3 months or I’ll be in danger of never leaving this bloody house again. I can’t say I’ve missed the very early walks if I’m being brutally honest – work is taking up so much of my time these days that I’ve settled much too easily into logging on about 10am and not logging off again until 2am the following morning. I still have sooooo much to learn about my new career and if I’m not actually working on client projects I’m reading up on industry news, learning about a new aspect of online marketing, catching up on forum and blog posts, trying news things, trying to understand other things, trying to catch up….

It struck me yesterday that I couldn’t remember the last time I had a proper “day off” – as in not being online, not reading up about SEO, not doing SEO, not reading emails and articles about SEO. It may have been Christmas Eve but I’m pretty sure I was working on something that day too, I certainly was on Christmas Day. I need to start spending time away from the laptop and work if I’m going to properly recharge my batteries on a regular basis and being out on the hills has always been a fantastic way of doing that for me. It’s so lovely up here at the moment with the daffs out and the trees in bud that I’m going to start walking again for at least 20 minutes a day, every day, and see how that goes. It’ll have to be on the flat and I’ll need to carry my inhaler but at least I’ll be outside and away from the PC for at least a few minutes a day.

It’s almost a cliche now that walking 10,000 steps a day will do wonders for your health and waistline. I was stunned to recently discover this wasn’t based on extensive medical research at the time but was a business concept used to promote and sell Japanese pedometers. Even more stunning was the discovery that 10000 steps may be ok to maintain good health but you need to do nearer to 17000 steps a day to achieve a decent rate of weight loss. Blimey.

10000 steps a day apparently equates to around 5 miles – I seem to average 7000 steps in 3 miles (can’t quite work out whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing) so a 2 hour walk should amount to 140000 steps. However, that’s 14000 continuous steps which is, apparently, even more beneficial than spreading the exercise out over the day. Whatever. I’ve found it too easy to get obsessed by counting steps in the past, to the point where I’ve given up any intention of doing any exercise because I’ve forgotten to hook the pedometer on the second I got out of bed.  Counting steps on a hill walk is a bit of a waste of time too I find as it really doesn’t reflect the effort in climbing a bugger of a steep hill or negotiating a boggy field.

Having said that, I do have a fantastic pedometer which I love as it’s wonderfully accurate and user friendly. I’ll use it to measure how many steps I’m taking on a ‘flat’ walk on the first day of every month. That way I can see whether my pace is improving as the weight (hopefully) drops off.