Cebu City – Most, if not all, people walk every day. This physical activity is a common activity that people do daily, the very basic kind of cardio, and is an excellent strategy to enhance or maintain your health.

Walking is a low-impact action that requires little equipment, and can be done at any time of day, and at your own speed. To improve your health, you don't need to engage in strenuous exercise or do it for long periods of time. Try the basic—walk! However, does walking really keep you active and healthy?

Aside from running, walking is a good form of exercise that can help you achieve your fitness and weight-loss goals. According to some studies, walking for 30 minutes or more most days of the week is an excellent approach to improving or maintaining general health. This means that walking can help in the development of stamina, the burning of calories and body fat reduction, provide bone strength, increase muscle power, enhance mood, improve circulation, and the improvement of cardiovascular health.

Walking can make your body, heart, and mind happy as this can also help your brain be sharper. Not only that, but you may also transform a basic stroll into a pleasant, rapid interval workout by adding some variables to the mix, burning a high number of calories, and, as a result, busting your fat cells.

So how many calories do you burn when you walk? The casual speed of walking by most people is 3mph which means that people walk for 20 minutes in 1 mile. To measure it simply, a total of 1000 steps burns about 50 calories. That means that if you aim to walk for 10,000 steps daily, you burn 500 calories daily.

On the other hand, if you are bored and unmotivated enough to walk, try to spice it up by targeting a certain step count daily through a pedometer. You can start by targeting a 3,000-step count, then increase it to 5,000 until you reach 10,000. A 10,000-step count is the recommended number of steps for most adults to achieve 2.25 points of systolic blood pressure but still depends on the fitness goal or age of a person.

You can also try to walk with your dog if you want company while walking, or you can try to walk with others from your neighborhood. Not only that you are able to do some exercise, but you are also able to socialize around your neighborhood. Music or listening to podcasts can also help to get you motivated.

For most people, walking is the most underrated form of exercise. Not knowing that there are also many benefits from doing it. Finally, while walking is a great type of exercise, current research suggests that for maximum health, we should move throughout the day. // AA VI Ronalyn C. Dela Cerna