Two Teesside authors are arguing the case for walking – the easiest and cheapest way to keep fit and stay healthy

MAGGIE Humphreys and Les Snowdon, Middlesbrough-born authors of the best selling Walking Diet, have just launched their latest eBook, The Urban Walker: How to Upgrade Your Mind, Body and Spirit in 30 Days.

The book returns to their main theme that fitness walking can seriously improve your health, fitness and wellbeing and help you cope with the daily stress of life. It is an invitation to step out into the open air, take a deep breath and reconnect with your mind, body and spirit.

Increasing urbanisation, while providing work and a higher standard of living for most people, has also brought in its wake health and wellbeing problems such as stress, heart disease, cancer, obesity and a host of related diseases as people have tended to become more is sedentary.

So why urban walking? What’s wrong with country walking, rambling, hiking or some other form of regular walking exercise. “Absolutely nothing,” Maggie Humphreys says. “I love all those things – there’s nothing like a bracing walk on the beach, a brisk walk over a mist-covered moor or a hike up the side of a mountain, but a lot of us are not going to find the time to do this in a normal working week.”

A teacher for more than 30 years, Maggie says a lot of inactivity begins with the school run. “The average school journey is just 1.5 miles and 20 per cent of all cars on the road during the morning peak are doing the school run,” she says. “This has doubled over the past 20 years and many of these journeys could be made on foot. Research shows that children who walk to school are healthier, fitter and more independent and they arrive at school more relaxed, mentally alert and ready to learn.”

Maggie’s exercise mantra has always been “around the block and back again”. Walking quite simply is the magic bullet, she says. “Urban walking is the easiest, quickest, cheapest and most effective way for people of all ages to become more active and stay active in the long term.

Walking for fitness changed my life – it can change yours too.”

  • Visit the website at WalkWalk.co.uk