Yes, you read that title correctly. The days of walking being reserved for older adults, parents with strollers, and dogs are over.

Brisk walking has a multitude of benefits, including:

It burns a ton of fat, and virtually zero muscle.
It speeds recovery.
It helps ease stress and anxiety, reduces depression and imparts a positive kick-start to your day. It improves your self-esteem, charges up the mood and helps to keep you energetic, positive and happy throughout the day.
It improves brain function. Walking stimulates blood flow, and provides oxygen to the brain. This leads to improved functioning of the brain and better ability to recall.
And it may help slow down the aging process.

You don’t hear a lot about brisk walking because, well, it’s just not that sexy. Kettlebell circuits, track workouts, battle rope intervals; these are much more exciting, and they certainly have their place, I’m not discounting them one bit, but brisk walking is the one thing you can (and should) do everyday to reach your fat loss goals, and feel better about yourself.

People make the mistake, if fat loss is the goal and they're not getting there as quickly as they'd like, of doing more intense exercise. But this will only ever lead to one thing... burn-out. 1-3 days per week of intense metabolic conditioning is more than enough to reach any fat loss goal, with a clean diet and plenty of brisk walking. And most of all, it’s sustainable.

I do my best to get, at the very least, a 30 minute walk in everyday. It’s my favorite way to catch up with a friend, but I also enjoy going it alone. Sometimes with music, sometimes a podcast or book on tape, and sometimes I just get into what’s going on around me. Just focus on being very deliberate about it. Walk at a pace as if just someone is following you and you want to maintain distance.

Now get out there and walk my friends, I promise you won’t regret it.

XOXO –

JULES