Welcome back to another day (or) night, here in my own little space I call Carol’s Corner. I pray that you have found something on each of your visit’s here , that have helped you in some way you might have needed, or even not realized you needed. Remember , my goal is always to serve you my reader’s in anyway that I can. So feel free to let me know if you need something I am not touching on. A few things about my pic today. Some of you already know , that from time to time I go thrift store shopping. This blouse is one of those finds. I really love it . It is all the colors that happen to be favorites of mine and I quite like the design of the blouse. The material is also beautiful. A little side note to my outfit. Love the matching FitBit band I hadn’t worn yet. Still waiting for a few more from China that I ordered after this last batch. Those of you who are getting to know me through here and our SIS walking group, know how big I am at accessorizing. I just always have been blessed with the ability to know how to put the right things together and love doing it. Something I thought would be a great job, would be to be someone’s personal shopper, or shoppers’s assistant. I could rock that job and would love every minute. Think I’ve decided on my topic for tonight. It will probably be a work in progress as I go along, maybe it will even take up more than a day. I see after editing that this will probably be part of a series on walking. I am going to talk about the benefit’s of walking as exercise in a weight loss program. Tonight will mostly be about the benefits of walking. SIS group members, gotta love that , right? So let’s get started and see what I come up with. The source for the following information is taken from Medicinenet.com and their article on walking. Looks to be a lot of info here. Will provide a link as usual. http://www.medicinenet.com/walking/article.htm. Hippocrates stated ” That walking is man’s best medicine”. Guess he must have known something back then. This articles covers how walking can help you , how much you need to see the benefits, types of walking and techniques , what to do to get started , and various other helpful information. Walking was part of your life since your very first step. Along the line somewhere, you probably just got more sedentary, right? The author of this states that from 2000 to 2005, that the percentage of adults who spent their day sitting increased from 36.8% to 39.9%. Who knows what that might be now? I’m sure you all know what most of the reasons for this are , so I’ll just let you read them on this website later if you want. Here’s a fact that is pretty mind boggling. Not sure I knew this. Inactivity is the second leading cause of death, second only to tobacco use. Now that is pretty scary, and should spur us to action. Since walking is a pretty simple activity you’d think that we’d all be doing it. But according to this author , fewer than 50% of adults do enough exercise to gain any health or fitness benefits from physical activity. There are many good reasons to walk. Let’s explore this author’s top 10. # 1. Walking can prevent Type 2 Diabetes . Here’s a link with all kinds of facts relating to this topic. http://www.medicinenet.com/diabetes_prevention/article.htm. The major fact the author said here, was that walking 150 minutes per week and losing just 7% of your body weight ( 12-15 lbs) can lower your risk of developing this disease by 58%. If I had only done something in the two years prior when I let my weight balloon up, I might not have developed this disease. Take heed of this , especially if there is a family history of diabetes like there was mine. We’ll combine 2 and three together. Walking strengthens your heart. In a study of retired males, those who walked less than one mile per day, mortality rates were twice that of those who walked more than two miles per day. Women in the Nurses Health Study ( 72,488 females nurses ) , who walked more than 3 hours per week reduced their risk of a heart attack or coronary event by 35% than those women who didn’t walk. # 4. Walking is good for your brain. Interesting study here on women and cognitive brain function. Women who walked at an easy pace, at least 1.5 hrs. per week had significantly better cognitive function and less declining function than women who walked less than 40 minutes per week. Something to ponder women. # 5. Walking is good for your bones. This is especially important for post menopausal women. Studies show that this category of women who walk at least 1 mile a day, have higher whole body density than women who walk shorter distances. It is also effective in slowing the bone loss in the legs. 6: Walking alleviates symptoms of depression. This study is pretty interesting. Walking for 30 minutes 3-5 times a week for 12 weeks reduced symptoms of depression by 47%. This was derived from a standard depression questionnaire. # 7. Walking reduces the risk of breast and colon cancer. Interesting stats here. Women who walked the equivalent of 1:15 minutes to 2:30 minutes (Brisk Walking) decreased their risk of breast cancer by 18%, compared to those who were inactive. Studies have shown exercise can help prevent colon cancer and if one develops it, the benefits of exercise continue both in quality of life as well as decreased mortality rates. # 8. Walking improves fitness. Now to me this is a no brainer. How could it not? Here is a great fact though. Walking just three times a week for 30 minutes can greatly improve cardio respiratory fitness. # 9. Walking in short bouts also improves fitness. Now this is kind of interesting. This was taken from a study of sedentary women. This showed that short bouts of brisk walking, ( 3 ten minute walks per day ) resulted in similar improvements in fitness and also were at least as effective in decreasing body fatness as one longer 30 minute walk. # 10. Walking improves physical function. This should interest all of us seniors. LOL!! Really though. Research shows that walking improves physical fitness and function and prevents physical disability in older persons. So there you have it. The top ten reasons to walk. Do we even need to say more? These 10 reasons and corresponding studies should make us even more determined to incorporate walking in any form into our daily routine. I’m going to do another review here of a Denise Austin Walk Workout I have used to switch things up once in awhile . It is quite an excellent workout. Tomorrow I am going to continue on with more about walking and weight loss. Now onto this review. Here are the front and back covers.

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