Walk off stubborn fat

Discover micro-walking, the tiny walks helping women lose huge!

- —BY ALLISON NEMETZ

We're constantly looking for easy workouts to get us slim—and researcher Ashley Goodwin, Ph.D., has turned us on to the easiest one yet. Nicknamed micro-walking, it was created by scientists looking for the minimum number of steps we need to take daily to see health benefits.Turns out, 1,000 steps goes a long way. During an ongoing study of sedentary people asked to walk 1,000 extra steps a day, a kidney-transplant patient has already shed over 50 pounds; meanwhile, a Florida grandma is down 66 pounds. “People hear they should walk 10,000 steps a day, but if you're busy or have physical limitations, it can be too much at first,” says Goodwin. “The best exercise is exercise you'll actually do.” Read on to learn about the big impact of tiny walks.

Goodwin helps lead the MOST Walking Study, a clinical trial sponsored by New York's Northwell Health network, the NIH and Columbia University. Final results, due next year, will shed light on how adding 1,000 steps a day can impact overall heart disease risk and key risk factors like blood pressure and body weight.

Why 1,000 steps? Inspiration came from a study of more than 225,000 people that linked at least 2,337 daily steps to a reduced risk of deadly cardiac issues. For every 1,000 steps above that, risk dropped significantly more. The findings were observed in people living however they chose; Goodwin's team wanted to see what would happen if inactive folks purposely added 1,000 steps daily. The really nice part: “It’s such an easy and sustainable target,” she notes.