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This one’s for the walkers: If you’ve ever felt bad because you can’t jog or just don’t feel like it, I have good news.

True, you can’t burn as many calories per minute walking as you can running—but you can get the same health benefits, according to some new research. It’ll just take a little bigger chunk out of your day.

Previous studies that looked at the benefits of walking and running used time, not distance, in their comparisons. That’s a bit stupid, as the average person can cover about three miles during an hour-long brisk walk but five or six miles (or more) in the same period of running.

It’s no wonder walking came out as less effective in the old studies, given that joggers ended up doing twice as much work.

All the same health advantages

In this new study, involving more than 33,000 runners and 15,000 walkers, scientists correlated energy expenditures (calorie cost) from walking and running with risk reductions for high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, diabetes, and coronary heart disease.

And although the intensity levels of those activities are very different, the upshot is that walking ultimately provides all the same health advantages.

Here’s how lead scientist Dr. Paul T. Williams put it:

“The more the runners ran and the walkers walked, the better off they were in health benefits. If the amount of energy expended was the same between the two groups, then the health benefits were comparable.”

Quick translation: if you burn, for example, 250 calories several times a week doing either of these forms of exercise (and let’s assume this holds for any form of aerobic exercise), you get equal reward.

If you weigh 150 pounds and you’re walking at a 3 mile-per-hour pace, it’ll take you about 50 minutes to burn those calories. If your running pace is 10 minutes per mile (6 miles per hour), you’ll need only 22 minutes to get the job done.

(Note that I’m using the calorie estimates provided by the calorie-burn calculator on the HealthStatus website.)

Either way, the payoff is significant

Both runners and walkers reduced their risk of first-time diagnoses of hypertension, high cholesterol, and diabetes. They also reduced their incidence of coronary heart disease.

As Dr. Williams points out, a walking habit may be more sustainable for lots of people. I’m thinking of the women I speak to who can no longer run because of arthritis in a knee or hip.

So if you’ve been thinking, “all I can do is walk,” there’s no reason to feel inadequate. You put in the time, and it’ll get the job done.

What’s your preference? Let me know in the comment box below!

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Quick—what’s the No. 1 reason you either don’t exercise or don’t log as many workouts as you’d like?

Most women I know will say “not enough time!”

I say it too. We’re all overscheduled, with so many more commitments than our calendars can hold.

But here’s yet another study (among many) suggesting that brief, intense exercise provides fabulous benefits.

OK, so maybe you’re not getting the 30 minutes, five days a week that major health organizations recommend. Can you squeeze in 75 minutes a week, warm-ups and cool-downs included? 

What you can accomplish in less than 2 hours a week

One of the advantages of exercise is the positive effect it has on blood-sugar levels.

Your muscles’ preferred fuel is glucose (blood sugar), so any form of muscular movement consumes glucose and thus reduces its level in your blood. When you exercise, your body is also able to use insulin more effectively, and that too results in greater “consumption” of blood glucose.

As you can imagine, this is great for diabetics. But it has positive implications for others too.

A study published in the December 2011 Journal of Applied Physiology looked at eight people with diabetes who used an exercise bike to perform 10 one-minute bouts of work at 90 percent of their maximal heart rate, with each bout followed by a minute of rest. That’s working very, very hard, and you can bet they were under medical supervision during these sessions.

They weren’t spring chickens either, with an average age of 63. Their average body mass index was 32, which is obese.

Just two weeks of this regime, three times weekly, resulted in a 13 percent drop in their average 24-hour blood-glucose level.

That’s pretty significant, and you’d hope the results would be even better over time and with longer sessions. You can read the study’s abstract here.

High-intensity training isn’t just for diabetics. It’s for anyone who wants to get a terrific cardio workout in a hurry.

Aerobic fitness is measured by how much oxygen your body can consume during intense exercise, or your V02 max.

The traditional exercise prescription for improving oxygen uptake is simply to perform lots of cardio, typically at moderate intensity. But we now know that high-intensity intervals (like the ones used in the study described above) greatly improve V02 max, and in a hurry.

Interval training also provides another truly major goodie: excess post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC).

In translation, that means we consume more oxygen than usual—and thus burn more calories than usual—for quite as much as 24 hours after performing high-intensity training. So even if you’re sitting on the couch a few hours after doing your intervals, you’re using more energy than you typically do while parked on your rear.

One caveat about high-intensity exercise: It’s not for those who are starting from square one. You need to build a fitness foundation before embarking on intervals.

Check out this article to learn more.

And see your doctor to get medical clearance.

What do you think? Would you like being able to get your workout done in half the time? Let me know in the comment box!

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“Past performance is no guarantee of future results.” That’s the boilerplate we see when we buy a mutual fund or other potentially risky investment. It serves as a warning, lest we think success is a sure thing.

But what if we flipped things around and used those words to encourage ourselves? What if we used them to remind ourselves that yes, we can change, that we can succeed in the future even if we’ve struggled in the past?

Plenty of women feel like they’ve “failed” at fat loss because they’ve tried this diet or that diet, lost some weight, and then regained it. Maybe that describes you.

But let’s look at those events as results, not failures. Let’s examine them to see why you might not have been successful. And let’s not make the mistake of thinking we’re doomed to stay unhealthy just because we haven’t attained our goals just yet.

A better strategy is to figure out what we can learn from the past and use our “failures” to make better choices now. You can start by asking yourself these questions:

1. Did the diet provide enough calories to keep you satisfied? (Most popular diets do not!)
2. Did the diet include enough high-quality protein?
3. Was the food plan based on normal whole foods (e.g., lean meats, vegetables, fruits, low-fat dairy, whole grains) rather than fake foods (e.g., shakes, meal-replacement bars, “diet” cookies)?
4. Did anyone support you during your fat-loss program?
5. Was exercise part of your routine?
6. Did you have an exercise buddy, join an exercise class, or otherwise enlist the help of people who kept you accountable?
7. Did the diet promise fat loss if you took certain supplements?
8. Did the program promise fat loss greater than one to two pounds a week?
9. Did the diet cut out whole categories of essential macronutrients (for example, carbohydrates or fats)?

If you answered no to some or all of questions 1 through 6 or yes to some or all of questions 7 through 9, the odds were against you.

Don’t let that discourage you: you just learned something. All of those factors have a powerful influence on your chances of success.

This topic has been on my mind since a friend e-mailed to thank me for believing in her—and to say that some of the others in her life have seen her “fail” at diets before and thus expect her to “fail” again.

Here’s what I know: your past performance does not dictate future results.

With solid information rather than hype, people who support you, the willingness to change your habits, and enough self-love to cut yourself some slack when you hit a rough patch, you absolutely can lose fat and improve your health.

I know you have the power.

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Diet gurus love low-carb diets—and dieters love them—because going on one usually causes a dramatic loss of weight the first week. Notice that I didn’t say loss of fat.

People get all excited about that first week’s weight loss of four, five, or six pounds or more. Well, there’s an easy explanation for what’s going on, and it has nothing to do with fat loss.

So what is happening when you go on the Atkins, Dukan, or other low-carb diet and see a significant weight loss almost immediately?

In order to explain, I need to give you a little background on carbohydrates first.

Fast and slow fuels

Carbs are your body’s preferred fuel source. No matter what you’re doing—whether you’re vegging out on the couch or running a marathon—you’re always burning a combination of carbohydrate and fat as fuel.

Depending on the activity, your body consumes more or less fat and more or less carbohydrate.

Carbohydrate is a very fast fuel—one your body can break down extremely quickly. So when you sprint, you’re using carbohydrate almost exclusively.

Breaking down fat is a slower process and involves more biological work. When you’re sitting on the couch or sleeping, you’re burning proportionately more fat.

Your brain runs on sugar—the glucose in your blood. Because your brain must have sugar and the rest of your body must have carbohydrate as a fast fuel, your body employs elaborate processes to make sure carbohydrate will always be available.

The body stores carbohydrate in your muscles and your liver in a form called glycogen. You can think of glycogen as fuel in the tank.

OK, stick with me—I’m about to explain how this relates to low-carbohydrate diets.

If you stop eating carbs, your body still absolutely has to have them. It immediately begins consuming the glycogen stored in your tank before moving on to the more challenging task of converting fats and proteins into usable carbohydrate.

Every gram of that stored glycogen in your liver or muscles is accompanied by four to five grams of water in your body. If your body uses up one gram of glycogen, it sheds those four to five grams of water.

What do you think happens if your body burns up one pound of glycogen? It sheds four to five pounds of water.

Bingo: you’ve got a five or six-pound “weight” loss: one pound of glycogen plus four or five pounds of water.

Let’s say you also lose one pound of fat in your first week on a low-carb diet because you are eating fewer calories than before.

And by the way, there are only two reasons you lose fat: because you’re consuming fewer calories than your body needs or burning more calories through increased activity. The ratio of protein, carbs, and fats you’re consuming has nothing to do with it (except for the fact that you burn a few extra calories digesting protein).

You could end up with a seven-pound weight loss during your first week on a low-carb diet, and you’d probably think, Wow, I’m making great progress!

Well, in this example, it turns out that only one pound of that loss was fat.

As soon as you start eating carbohydrates again—and you have to eventually—you begin storing glycogen, and the water you lost will come right back in proportion to the stored glycogen.

No minimum daily requirement?

Some rather uninformed people have argued that since there is no “minimum daily requirement” for carbs, that means you can do without them quite nicely.

First, there certainly are minimum daily requirements for vitamins and minerals, and if our diet consisted only of meat, dairy products, and fats, we couldn’t possibly get enough of them.

Vegetables and fruits—our primary source of many essential vitamins and minerals, as well as antioxidants—consist mostly of . . . carbs.

Second, and more to the point, because you would die without blood sugar, your body has failsafe mechanisms to turn fat and protein into sugar within your body. But these processes are far less efficient than turning dietary carbohydrate into sugar.

Anyone who tries to exercise vigorously while on a low-carb diet is going to feel like crap.

The more active you are, the more you need carbohydrates. They are your body’s preferred fuel source, so how sensible do you think it is to restrict them unduly?

Granted, some carbs provide more nutrition than others. Fruit, whole grains, fibrous vegetables (e.g., broccoli and green beans), starchy vegetables (e.g., carrots and potatoes), and legumes are much better choices than Twinkies and Coke.

So please don’t get the idea that carbohydrates are making you fat—and thus that a low-carb diet will somehow magically make you lean.

And if you go on a low-carb diet and see a dramatic early weight loss, don’t be too quick to assume the loss is primarily fat.

Why your week 1 weight loss is meaningless

Doing a low-carb diet and seeing impressive results? Don’t get too excited. Here’s what’s going on during that first week—and why that early weight loss means nothing.

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Do potatoes make you fat?

Well, they certainly can . . . the same way any food can: if you eat too much of it, you get fat.

It’s true of potatoes just as it’s true of cupcakes, pizza, and any other food—healthy or unhealthy—that you could name.

OK, I admit this article’s headline is a tease. I wrote it because I wanted you to read it so I could have the chance to persuade you that potatoes are not bad carbs, not inherently fattening, not a despicable vegetable that has to be shunned by dieters and should be eliminated from school lunches.

Not long ago I talked to a very intelligent professional woman who is close to 60 but looks more like 45. She has an excellent figure and is very fit. Her diet (by which I mean “daily food plan”) is healthy and sensible.

But during our conversation, she said she avoids unhealthy carbs like “white sugar, white flour, white potatoes . . .”

The humble spud does have white flesh, but it deserves so much more respect than to be categorized with refined carbs that have been stripped of much of their nutritional value.

In fact, when I’m restricting calories for weight loss, the ’tater is one of my best friends.

Why I love potatoes

Why do I love the spud? A smallish potato (about 100 grams, or 3.5 ounces) can be ready to eat in just a few minutes. Preparing it takes about 30 seconds: scrub with vegetable brush, pierce with knife, wrap wet potato in paper towel, nuke in microwave.

Served with cottage cheese and/or some grilled chicken or lean beef and a few tablespoons of salsa, it makes a highly nutritious, tasty, and very filling lunch or dinner. Key word is filling: potatoes provide high satiety, meaning they quell your hunger for a long time.

That small potato helps you feel full much, much longer than a half cup of brown rice or 1.5 slices of whole-wheat bread or just about any other similar portion of another healthy carb.

Now let’s talk about nutrition. Did you realize that the potato compares very favorably with brown rice, which everyone knows is a nutritional winner?

Let’s look at 100 grams of baked potato with skin, prepared without salt, and 100 grams (about half a cup) of cooked brown rice. All values come from the USDA National Nutrient Database.

About the only advantage brown rice has is its higher levels of B vitamins, and even here the potato has quite respectable amounts.

A nutritional star

Note that the potato is one of the best sources of potassium around. Many Americans are deficient in this all-star nutrient, which is associated with reducing the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, arthritis, cancer, digestive disorders, and infertility.

An adequate adult daily intake of potassium is 4,700 milligrams—an amount that’s tough to get unless you eat lots of bananas, milk, citrus fruits, green vegetables, and other healthy stuff.

And none of the items in the list above contain as much potassium in a 100-gram serving as my pal the potato (535 mg per 100-gram portion).

What about the glycemic index? Maybe you’re concerned about eating baked potatoes because you fear they are “too high” on the glycemic index—a measure of how quickly a food influences the level of glucose (sugar) in your blood.

The leading online database for glycemic index measurements indicates that 150 grams of baked potato with skin have a GI of 69; 150 grams of brown rice have a GI of 66. Both are thus considered “medium” on the GI scale.

More important, if you’re concerned about the glycemic index, you should know that the entire meal is what determines your body’s blood-sugar response, not each individual food item.

So when you eat that potato with protein and fat (as when you combine it with cottage cheese or lean protein plus a salad with an oil-based dressing), the meal has a much lower GI than the potato (or any starch) would have by itself.

I hope I’ve persuaded you that the potato is your friend too. Bake it rather than fry it, and eat the skin. See if you don’t find it a filling and tasty alternate to other starches.

Flickr photo by foodiesathome.com

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How do you feel about the numbers you see on your bathroom scale? This is a loaded question, of course: I’m asking what emotional response you have to an objective fact, the amount you weigh at any given moment.

I started thinking about this question after reading a fitness columnist’s exhortation not to focus “solely” on the results of your scale reading when you’re trying to lose weight.

Fair enough. The scale only tells us so much—and it doesn’t discriminate between fat weight and lean-body mass (well, unless it’s a bodyfat-estimating scale).

But the column begins with a rather dramatic series of negatives: the result of the weighing is called “the dreaded measurement.” The author does not “dare” to look and is “in the grip of fear because I don’t think I want to see this cold, uncaring number.”

The problem, of course, is not the number, which clearly can’t be stupid, cold, or uncaring. The problem is the way we respond to that simple bit of information.

It’s actually not the event (like weighing myself and seeing a number) that causes my emotions. It’s my response to the event that triggers my feelings.

Example: If I get on the scale and see that I’ve put on five pounds, I have gained a piece of useful information. What will I do with it?

I can choose to react with a lot of negative self talk (“I’m such a pig . . . I’ll never be able to control my weight . . . what’s the point of dieting?”) that can only make me feel bad and in fact make me more susceptible to grabbing a candy bar at the next opportunity.

Choosing a different response

Or I can respond quite differently.

I can tell myself, “OK, that makes sense. Now I know it wasn’t my imagination that my jeans were getting tight. I’m glad I got on the scale and discovered this before I gained more weight. I know what to do. Time to tighten up the eating plan and get to the gym more often.”

In fact, I can choose to be grateful for having learned that I weighed more than I realized.

Now that I have the information, I can decide to do something about it and feel good about making that decision and taking charge.

That number on the scale is just a result, a bit of data. It can only make me feel stupid or fat or worthless if I decide to let it.

No, the scale doesn’t tell the whole story.

That’s why, if you’re trying to lose weight you must have an estimate of your body fat—so you will know whether you’re maintaining, gaining, or losing fat and muscle.

This is one of the principles I’ll be teaching in my upcoming webinar, The 7-Step Formula for Weight-Loss Success.

Learn from the world’s most successful losers

Finally, take a tip from the successful “losers” who participate in the National Weight Control Registry.

Who are they, and why should you care?

The NWCR tracks more than 5,000 people who have lost anywhere from 30 to 300 pounds and kept it off. The scientists connected with the registry are conducting “the largest prospective investigation of long-term successful weight-loss maintenance.”

The NWCR website lists some key findings about these success stories, including the facts that 98 percent of participants modified their food intake to lose weight and 94 percent upped their physical activity.

Oh—and 75 percent of them weigh themselves at least once a week.

Flickr photo, some rights reserved, by jodigreen

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Color me shocked: A recently published study, conducted with data gathered between 1999 and 2004, found that only about 6.3 percent of U.S. women over 20 reported lifting weights regularly.

I don’t have any illusions about the prevalence of couch-potatoism. But because I’m talking about fitness all the time and hanging out in gyms, I guess I would have expected the numbers to be higher. At least 10 percent?

Things look slightly better for adult men: about 11.2 percent of them said they lift at least twice a week.

I bring this up today because the study looked at one very specific benefit of resistance training: reducing our likelihood of developing metabolic syndrome.

OK, so what’s metabolic syndrome?

Glad you asked. It’s a constellation of five cardiovascular disease risk factors:

• poor blood-sugar control or a diagnosis of diabetes
• overweight or obesity (indicated, for women, by a waist measurement of 35 inches or more)
• elevated blood triglycerides
• low levels of “good” cholesterol and
• high blood pressure.

If you have three or more of these factors, you’re considered to have metabolic syndrome.

Here’s the good news: the aforementioned study found that metabolic syndrome was 58 percent less likely to afflict those who have a regular strength-training program.

Muscle: it does a body good

The research report notes that previous studies invariably demonstrate “an inverse relationship between measured muscular strength and muscle mass and the prevalence of [metabolic syndrome].”

Translation? Having stronger, larger muscles offers protection against metabolic syndrome and its ingredients.

Not to mention that increased muscle mass makes both sexes look better and firmer, preserves balance, burns calories, strengthens bones, and gives us a better shot at remaining independent as we age.

Here are two findings that scare me: as mentioned above, women are much less likely to lift than men. And with each decade of age, the percentages of people who lift decline significantly.

Among adults ages 20 to 29, about 14.5 percent lift. In the 30 to 39 and 40 to 49 age groups, it’s just over 10 percent.

But when you look at the 50- and 60-somethings, the percentages are 5.7 and 3.9, respectively. Seriously scary!

Those are the decades when people who have an established exercise habit really need to keep it up. And those who haven’t been getting their sweat on need to start doing so.

As I say all the time, it’s never too late. Tons of studies prove that people of all ages gain strength and muscle mass when they begin intelligent resistance training. Even frail 90-year-old nursing-home dwellers.

But why wait? If you used to lift, get back in the gym this week. How about today? And if you’ve never lifted, I can help you get started.

Please leave a comment in the box below. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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One-sixth of 2013 is already gone. Hard to believe, isn’t it?

Now, I don’t know whether you’re feeling pleased or frustrated (or both) with the first two months of the year. But I have a challenge for you if you want to make the next six weeks truly memorable.

On Dec. 2 I published a very short post about setting goals for 2013, and in that article I said

Action is the key . . . small, persistent steps toward your goal . . . and that’s why I decided to launch the Be Your Best Fat-Loss & Fitness Challenge.

The most important things for you to know:

• It’s free.
• You decide what your goal will be.
• It runs from March 15 through April 30 (about six and a half weeks).

Who should join?

Anyone who wants to make healthy changes this spring . . . anyone who wants to emerge on May 1 a little slimmer, more energetic, healthier, and more confident.

If you’re like me (and a lot of other people), sometimes you want to do or be more, but you need a little push to get started.

And once we get that push?

We can do a heckofa lot in six weeks if we have a clear goal, solid information to guide us, and support from others.

What you get when you join us:

• As soon as you sign up, you get access to 5 free fat-loss and fitness resources that I know will help you: a hourlong video, a 60-minute audio, and 3 in-depth pdf reports.
• Daily e-mails throughout the challenge, starting March 15, with tips, strategies, and encouragement to keep you motivated.
• And a private Facebook group where we can support one another and share our challenges and successes. I think the Facebook group will be the strongest and most effective tool of all.

I’ll be popping in to the Facebook group every day . . . and I’m also participating as a member of the challenge, not just the organizer.

Because even fitness professionals need a jump-start now and then.

So if you’re ready to step up to the challenge, sign up now!

This challenge is for you, whether your goal is

• taking off a few pounds
• walking 10,000 steps a day
• eating more vegetables
• drinking more water
• committing to a regular Zumba class
• lifting more weight in the gym
• or whatever motivates you and feels like fun—and a bit of a stretch.

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Would you believe me if I said menopause is not responsible for weight gain? If you’re skeptical, keep reading . . . because it’s true.

(And if you want some scientific validation for my claim, check out this link.)

Yes, I know that somewhere around age 45 to 50, most women notice that they’re gaining fat around the middle.

It’s not your imagination.

Hormonal changes do influence where the fat goes when it’s deposited, and there’s a shift from gaining fat below the waist to putting it on around the midsection.

But something else significant is taking place as we get older . . . something that began decades before.

The cost of sedentary living

I’m talking about the metabolic slowdown that occurs as a result of losing lean mass, aka muscle.

The average person reaches her peak muscle mass at about age 30. And if she doesn’t engage in regular exercise to preserve or build muscle, she loses lean mass steadily from that point forward, at a rate of about 1 percent per year.

Doesn’t sound like much, but you can see how it adds up over time.

At about age 50, a much more steep decline begins. And at about that age, menopause is kicking in for most women.

As they start putting on fat, it’s natural to blame their hormones. But the real cause is a metabolism that’s been gradually slowing down for 20 years as a consequence of sedentary living and muscle loss.

If we have also crash-dieted, the damage will be significantly worse. As I’ve written before and as I teach in all my programs, diets that are too low in calories (e.g., hCG, anything that involves fasting, anything that cuts calories below your resting metabolic rate) cause loss of muscle and thus a slower metabolic rate.

But I don’t want to leave you feeling hopeless. One of my favorite sayings is “the body responds.” And that means as soon as you change the equation—the way you eat, the way you exercise—your body cannot help but change in response.

There really is a fountain of youth . . .

Once you start working out in a way that encourages muscle growth, you will gradually begin to regain the lean tissue you’ve lost. That also means you can reverse metabolic slowdown.

The process isn’t quick, but the benefits are incredible.

And no, you’re not too old—no matter what your age. Scads of studies on frail elderly people in nursing homes show that they too can add muscle mass through appropriate exercise.

Of course, I’m talking about strength training: the best antidote for a slow metabolism . . . not to mention a fabulous way to increase bone density, fight metabolic syndrome, feel more energetic, and yes, look better naked.

There absolutely is a fountain of youth, and it consists of moving heavy objects around.

Ready to take it further?

There’s a ton of information on this website that can help you accomplish your goals. But if you’re ready to make a greater commitment to losing weight and getting in shape, check out my Body-Transformation Bootcamp (BTB).

BTB 2.0 begins on March 26, with six live webinars that will cover every aspect of nutrition for fat-loss, effective fat-burning exercise, goal-setting, increasing your motivation, and the skills needed for lifetime weight maintenance.

Every session will be followed by a Q&A so you can get all your questions answered.

And I’ll be joined by my friend and colleague, mindset expert Victoria Morrison of Sydney, Australia.

As soon as you opt in to BTB, you get instant access to the entire course I delivered last summer—and you get free access to the all-new BTB when it launches next month.

We’d love to work with you!

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For me, the toughest part of caloric reduction is hunger. I simply can’t stand being hungry.

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