Are you one of many people who would like to shed some weight and lose a few inches from your waistline? Or it could be that you would like to have a significantly reduced risk of heart problems or stroke? Increasing the strength of your lungs and heart, or bringing your blood pressure level down might be important to you. Maybe you’d just like to have more energy, avoid depression and feel generally better?

It’s an impressive list of health benefits. However, if you’re bracing yourself for a plug for the latest wonder drug or expecting details of a fitness regime suitable for an Olympic medal hopeful, then you can relax. Believe it or not, all of these benefits – and a few more besides – are available simply by doing something that you do everyday anyway – walking.

Walking is a fantastic form of exercise. Anyone can do it – there’s no need to visit the gym (and no costly monthly membership fees). There’s no need for any special exercise equipment and you can slot it into your daily schedule whenever it suits you best.

All that you really need to start your walking exercise program is a comfortable pair of shoes and clothing suitable for the ambient conditions. Although not strictly necessary, you might want to think about an mp3 player if you don’t already have one. The miles will fairly fly by when you’re walking along listening to your favourite music.

Walking for as little as 30 minutes every day on a regular basis will soon make a difference. You will begin to realise all of the benefits previously mentioned – and the pounds will start to melt away. If you can work up to 10,000 steps a day – equivalent to about 5 miles – you will look good, feel great, have a lot more energy and be a good deal healthier. Again, whilst it’s not absolutely necessary, you might want to pick up a cheap pedometer (you can find these starting at u nder $10 these days).Even an Omron pedometer – one of the best and most accurate brands on the market – is inexpensive these days. This will help you to monitor exactly how many steps you take. Most modern pedometers will also tell you how much distance you’ve covered and how many calories you’ve burned if that’s how you prefer to measure your progress.

If you haven’t exercised on a regular basis for a while, if you have any a medical conditions, or if you are over 40 years of age then you should talk to your doctor before starting out on any new exercise routine. However, if you apply a little common sense and start out slowlyy, a low impact, low injury risk workout like walking will, most likely, be extremely beneficial for you. Walk to the shops and leave the car at home. Walk to work, walk to school. Take a ten or fifteen minute walk around the block during your lunch break. You’ll be healthier, slimmer and you’ll feel a lot better before you know it.

You could also try using Fit flops exercise shoes. They’re specially designed to increase the amount of time that your muscles are active for during normal walking activities – so they will help to increase the effectiveness of whatever walking activity you manage to fit into your daily schedule.

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