We hear a lot from both recent and past studies that if we shift in dietary habits to include low-glycemic functional foods and low-calories meals, and the modest increases in physical activity it could offer a valuable approach for reversing Metabolic Syndrome and preventing Type 2 diabetes and heart disease in at-risk people.

The simplest, cheapest and most effective way to access the benefits associated with a physically active lifestyle and they are many is to walk. No kidding.

Foe example, you might be able to find a few community projects that encourage people to walk 10,000 steps a day. Of course most people do not know what 10,000 steps are equal to, how long, or how far they should walk. 10,000 steps are roughly equivalent to seven or eight kilometers of walking. That may sound like a long walk, but the idea is not to do it all at once, but rather accumulate it over the course of your entire day. Walk and pick up the paper, walk a bit further from where you park the car, and take as many opportunities as you can during the day to acquire steps. Simply put, be a bit more self-propelled during the day. Depending on your habits, you may or may not need to add some extra walking before or after work to achieve the 10,000-step goal.

The normal person, by the way no one is normal, takes about 100 steps per minute. If we use this number we can calculate that 10,000 steps will take you one hour and forty minutes to complete. Again this doesn't have to be done all at once. Instead spread it over the entire day which means that still leaves you with over 22 hours on virtual inactivity!

You can use of a pedometer to keep track of the steps that you complete. These are relatively inexpensive and are available through a number of retailers. The pedometer is an effective means of establishing how much you do, and is a great little tool to start you on the road to increased activity.

One time I saw a movie on television. It started off with a wealthy man hold got into his car, drove down his driveway to the letterbox, picked up the newspaper, got back into the car, and reversed back to the house. This is only one (extreme) example of the poor activity decisions many of us make everyday. Called it the American Paradox, this seemingly conflicting message reflects the drastic decrease in 'incidental' physical activity and its effects on the energy balance. There has been a significant decline in the amount of incidental physical activity as opposed to goal-directed exercise that we are required to do, or choose to do, in our daily lives.

Walking is the only sustained aerobic activity that is common in the population today. Getting more people to walk more often will help the health and well being of both the individual and the community. It is estimated that an increase of 4,000 steps per day will equate to a loss of 0.2 kilograms per week for a moderately overweight person. Although this may not seem like a lot, one should remember that if you started that habit this week, within 12 months you would be over 10 kilos lighter!