Omron Pedometers - Helping You To Monitor Your Progress

Walking is a great way to take exercise. It's a low impact, low injury risk workout that anyone can do. There's no need for any special equipment and no need to visit the gym - so no monthly membership fees!

You can fit walking into your daily schedule whenever you like - there are plenty of opportunities available to you. 

Walking for just 30 minutes a day can make a difference. If you can gradually build up to 10,000 steps daily - which is about five miles for the average person - you will soon feel better and look better.

When you look at the list of the benefits that you can get simply by walking a little more often during the course of your day, it looks like an advert for some new wonder drug - or maybe the latest miracle vitamin supplement.

However, these benefits are proven and well established. Check them out below:

• Reduced risk of heart problems and stroke.
• Lower blood pressure.
• Improved heart and lung efficiency.
• Improved bone density and reduced risk of osteoporosis
• Reduces anxiety and depression
• Helps you to sleep better
• More energy
• Reduced risk of certain types of cancer
• Weight loss
• Reduced body fat
• May help to stave off Alzheimer's disease

It's quite a list - and all those benefits are available with no more than small changes in your daily routine.

It can be hard to believe that all of those health and fitness benefits are available just by increasing the amount that you walk each day. But that's exactly what walking offers you. And there are plenty of ways to incorporate it into your daily routine.

• Leave the car in the garage and walk to work/school.the shops.
• If you do take your car then park it in the far corner of the parking lot - so that you have further to walk in order to reach the entrance.
• If you use the bus or the subway, get off one or two stops early and complete the last leg of your journey on foot.
• Take the stairs instead of the elevator every now and again.
• Take a ten or fifteen minute walk around the block during your lunch break.

Of course, if you have the time, then you could always set aside 30 minutes or an hour sometime during your day, fire up your mp3 player and step it out. The miles - and the minutes - will just fly by when you're listening to your favourite music.

One of the problems with walking, especially if you opt to fit it in piecemeal as described in the bullet point list above, can be monitoring your progress. If you can gradually build up to 10,000 steps a day on a regular basis, you will soon see, and feel, the results of your activity. One way to help you track and record your progress would be to get hold of a pedometer.

These will display your results in terms of the number of steps taken, the distance covered, the time for which you walked or the number of calories burned. It can really help you to see the progress your making and help to keep you motivated.

You can wear a pedometer on your belt - but most modern pedometers can be carried discreetly in your pocket, your handbag or your briefcase if you prefer.

You can even get digital pedometers which will connect to your notebook or PC via the USB connection. These let you load your stats into your PC for analysis and help you to track your progress.