Walking for 30 minutes at a 4 mph pace burns about 100 calories per 100 pounds of body weight. Not too shabby!
Starting with the Proper Fit
Walking requires a single but extremely important piece of equipment: good shoes. Wearing shoes that don’t fit or don’t properly support your feet can result in almost immediate injury, resulting not only in discomfort and pain, but also discouraging you from achieving your goals.
The definition of a good shoe is one that fits you, not necessarily one that’s expensive.
Skip the trendy stores in the mall and seek out a running shoe store staffed by professionally trained shoe fitters. Plan on spending 30 minutes or more in your shoe fitting and selection expedition, allowing the fitter to properly assess your stance, foot strike, gait, and wear pattern, and giving you ample time to try on as many pairs as possible.
Take an old pair of sneakers with you, so that the fitter can assess your wear pattern. The fitter should also look at you standing in bare feet to determine whether you have low, medium, or high arches. Finally, the fitter should also watch you walk and run in bare feet. All of these assessments help determine your specific shoe needs. If your shoe fitter isn’t looking at these things, find another store.
Everyone’s feet should pronate naturally, rolling from the outside heel to the inside toe. Those of us with flat arches (whose shoes show wear on the inner section of the toe box) over-pronate, meaning that our feet roll too much. We need strong, stabilizing shoes that help prevent over-pronation.
Walkers with high arches (whose shoes show wear on the outer section of the heel) supinate; their feet don’t roll enough. Supinators need very flexible shoes, to encourage their feet to pronate further.
Another way to determine if you have high or low arches is with the "wet foot" test. Put a couple of newspaper pages or other paper on the floor. Wet the bottom of your bare foot, and step onto the paper. If the wet area on the paper is just around the outer edge of your foot, you have high arches; your arches never touched the paper. If you get a big, wet blob like I do, you have flat arches.
Other tips for a proper shoe fit:
Finally, remember that this decision is about function not fashion. Buy the pair that fits the best, not the one that’s the most trendy.
