Win a Pedometer! | Walk to Work Week  2011

To help you get started, MetroTravel has teamed up with Living Streets to give away ten pedometers: a handy gadget that records steps, kilometres walked and calories burned. For your chance to win, email metrocompetitions@tfl.gov.uk by 8pm tonight (9^th May)*.

Guestblogger: Janet Chu, our digital marketer here at Green Rewards talks about how she discovered walking as an exercise

A few months ago, I found myself stuck at physiotherapy with a painful hip, being confronted by my therapist about the lack of exercise.

Like most people, my life revolves around work, family, and worst of all, I’m also studying. So when challenged by my therapist, I did what everybody else would do - blame it on the good old ‘but I don’t have time’excuse. Trouble was, I knew deep down it was nobody else’s fault but mine entirely.

To a certain extent, we all mean well to stay healthy: trying to eat more fruit and veg, signing up to the gym after New Year day, less drinking, more exercising...the number of new year resolutions are endless. But year on year, optimism usually gets the best of us. As I sat there gazing at my therapist like a young child waiting to be told off, she smiled warmly and said ‘It’s easier than you think you know?’

‘How?’  I asked.

Her answer was simple: walking.

With Britain’s obesity rates rapidly rising, more and more of us are finding it harder and harder to incorporate 30 minutes of exercises, with a quarter of us admitting we only walk for 20 minutes once a year.

Not surprising then, if I add that most of us don’t think of strolling as a form of exercise. Did you know that walking can lift your spirits, improve circulation and burn up to 300 calories an hour! Sounds too good? That’s not the best part yet – it’s absolutely free, and when you drive less, you’re also reducing your carbon footprint so you’re also keeping our world healthy.

Researches have shown that walking doesn’t only help in terms of burning fat; it reduces the risk of coronary disease, lowers cholesterol and blood pressure, and increases mental well-being. Unlike running, which can put a huge strain on knee and ankle joints, it actually increases bone density, helping to prevent osteoporosis.

So what are you waiting for? This week is the National Walk to Work Week: take this opportunity, get your walking shoes on and join me on the quest of calories burning - you’ll be fit in time for the summer too, which is always a plus!

Contact: janet.chu@greenrewards.co.uk

*Full terms and conditions at www.tfl.gov.uk/competitions

Further references:

For more information on Living Streets, the charity behind Walk to Work Week (9-13 May) and Walk to School Week (16-20 May), please visit their website at www.livingstreets.org.uk

Telegraph - Walking for 30 minutes a day lowers colon cancer risk: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8233508/Walking-for-30-minutes-a-day-lowers-colon-cancer-risk.html

Metro London - Body Matters: Put your best foot forward, Monday, May 9, 2011-05-09