Walking is so good for you....

I agree, Greatnan. As well as being good for the body, I find walking or exercising briskly makes it impossible to think too deeply about family problems, and afterwards I feel more positive.

Hear, hear. I don't walk as far as you Greatnan but I do walk my hounds four times daily. I like solitude so I enjoy my early morning and late evening walks best of all. I take blood pressure meds and my post walk pre med reading this morning was 127/63 I hope to keep it that way .

I also encourage my DGC to walk as much as possible.

How many more professors are going to discover this?!

I don't have any trouble finding solitude as I almost never meet anybody on my isolated mountain walks. Yesterday, I walked for three hours through a forest on a very steep slope and ended up dragging myself back up by hanging onto branches. I had to cross a fast-flowing stream on a fallen log. When I got back, my bp was down to 96/65. I had to ask myself if this was any way for a 72-year old to behave!
I knew I had mobile cover as my phone bleeped twice and they were messages from Virgin welcoming me to Switzerland and then back into France. I hadn't crossed the frontier but I must have gone into the Swiss phone coverage.
A lovely morning here, so I am off for another very long walk.

I love walking, we were dragged on long walks by our parents on Welsh holidays as children, and I got the bug. I walk an hour plus every morning, and 30 mins in the evening. I used to do this before and after work as have always shared my life with dogs. Now I'm retired, I walk for longer often. I have inflammatory and osteo arthritis, and I'm sure that if I hadn't walked, I'd be worse off. Plus, it keeps me cheerful, I love the changing seasons in England.

The message doesn't seem to be getting through, jingle, however many professors say it! People drive to a gym so they can spend an hour on a treadmill!

Iam64 - walking has 'cured' my arthritis in the sense that my knees, hips and lower back no longer give me any pain. Your schedule sounds very sensible - I wish I could keep a dog as walking with one is so much more enjoyable.

That is true Greatnan. Totally bonkers! Although I do seem to see more women striding it out these days - mostly older women though.

I will always walk into town rather than drive, we have a lovely walk along the river it's great to see the swans and ducks with their young at the moment. We have a boating community we often chat to along the way, a couple of swans return to build their nest between the barges every year, when the nest become very rain sodden the residents usually try and reinforce it with straw. I love walking along the river it's very uplifting especially on a beautiful day such as today.

We enjoy walking but it seems a shame if it is the only exercise we ever get. There are so many muscles which don't get used if you only do one form of exercise. Of course it does help if you have beautiful countryside to walk in, not sure I would want to do it in a city.

We do Pilates and go to the gym as well and follow a programme which covers many different parts of the body which walking would not. I don't use the treadmill!

I swim/snorkel a good deal too!

I was out first thing, the sun was shining, the birds were singing and as I got to the top of the down and started the walk down hill the Cow parsley and grasses were so tall they were brushing my trousers as I walked.

Our paths are well walked so I met a friend and her dog and had a natter and passed several others I didn't know but exchanged greetings.

Earlier this week, when visiting DD we visited her local heated lido. It is huge but on Monday afternoon was nearly empty. There was a cold breeze but once in the pool it was great. I swam nearly half a mile. I wish we had a pool like that near us.

I just don't seem to have the time to do enough walking to do me good, so I am actually joining a gym as I've realised I don't get any cardio vascular exercise these days. I also hate going out when it's cold or wet. But I do agree about walking. Hope that when I retire I can do more of it, although I lost a lot of confidence when my knees started to go wonky. Hoping to build up more muscle strength at the gym and then walk more [that's the cunning plan, anyway]. I've always walked everywhere; never taken lifts when there's a staircase etc so hard to believe it's something I don't do much of these days .

Tegan - knee supports are a great help.

I love walking my dogs and they're not complaining.

Greatnan You would have been invaluable in WW2. I have an image of you being the only one who knew a secret route across the mountains, fluent in French and familiar with the peasants well known by the Maquis.

Movedalot, until we moved to the country I mainly lived and worked in cities/big towns and I found walking in them fascinating. You do not have to walk the main thoroughfares, get the local A-Z and walk all the back streets.

In London I would walk quite a distance between mainline station and a tube station that took me direct to work without changing. I always sought out back streets and used as many different roads as possible. I found the architecture interesting - also the interiors of the houses I could see into and the ambiances of different neighbourhoods. I also found a lot of useful little shops and service providers.

The same applies to residential neighbourhoods, odd little closes, grops of houses and green and overgrown areas where wildflowers flourish and birds sing.

I agree, Flickety, I get as much pleasure out of walking round towns and villages as I do from my mountain walks. I spent today pootling round a medieval village (Yvoire) on the shores of Lake Geneva, then took the ferry over to the Roman town of Nyon, in Switzerland.

Just went for a lovely morning walk before it gets hot. Will miss the open-ness of MK when I move to N Wales - although there will be compositions!
This is interesting research, hot of the press about the way exercise changes the expression of huge numbers of genes. For every gene that turns on there is a corresponding cellular process.
And in the experiment they did not do a huge amount of exercise :

bit.ly/1bbAgq3

Interesting article.

I thought the interesting part of the research was that having recruited their sample group, who must by definition have wanted to take part, the group only managed on average to do 1.8 of the 3 sessions they were asked to do each week.

It rather shows just how hard it is to get inactive people to lead a more active lifestyle. If a group of young healthy but inactive men can be motivated enough to sign up for an exercise programme but not motivated enough to actually take the exercise the doctors want them to take as part of the experiment.

But even despite the half hearted particpation all those genes kicked into action.
Incentive to start exercising even if you can only do a little bit at first.

Even if you can only ever do a little bit. Some must always be better than none, surely?

Yes, I think even 15 minutes a day will have a good effect. I started very gradually, but within a couple of months I could walk 12 kms on very steep paths (the only kind they have round here!) without getting out of breath. Like most converts, I am incredibly passionate about the advantages of walking.
I have walked for two hours this morning, in the heat, carrying a backpack which probably weighs about 2 kgs. (Less once I had eaten my lunch and drunk most of my water). I climbed about 200 metres, over 600' , over very rough terrain, including fallen trees and branches and through some very deep muddy patches, which made me grateful for my sturdy, waterproof boots and my walking poles for balance.
I would have walked for longer, but the men's final called! I might go another walk this evening.

I used to tell everyone that I walked at least five times a week. Sorry! I've been telling a bit of a porky. One way or another I walk at least 2 miles a day. If I walk with friends who have pedometers I find that I have often walked 5/6 miles. What I am aiming/trying to say is that walking has become so much part of my life that I don't always call it exercise.

Three years ago, I felt like a slug! Now I feel like, I could keep walking for ever, if that was necessary.

Unfortunately, although I expend these calories walking, it all gives me a "healthy" appetite and it's only the 5:2 diet that keeps me within 'bounds'.