What is power walking? It’s a form of walking that uses your upper body as well as your legs, and it means you are using a lot more calories and getting a far better workout in terms of cardiovascular fitness and mus­cular toning. It’s a lot of fun, especially if you can get together with a few friends to keep you company.

1. Start off with five minutes of normal walking. Stop for a moment and stretch out your muscles.

2. Set off again and gather pace. Try to get into a steady rhythm of strides, and bring in your breathing so that you breathe in to four strides and out to six. As you get more puffed you might want to reduce this to in for two counts and out for four. See how you go.

3. Now add arm movements, something like these:

- Sixteen bicep curls (elbow bends). Go ‘up-down’, one to each strike of the foot.

- Pectoral presses. With elbows at shoulder height, bring hands and elbows to touch and then out again. One movement to each foot stride. Do sixteen.

- Chest presses. Start with hands at shoulder level, reach for the sky and bring down again. Do sixteen.

- Lateral raises. Start with arms hanging down. Raise elbows to the side and lower. Do sixteen.

Drop your arms and keep walking for a minute to rest. Start again, and do the complete sequence of movements, sixteen bicep curls, sixteen pectoral presses, sixteen chest presses and sixteen lateral raises. It is quite tiring, but very good for you, and you’re getting slimmer and fitter all the time. Keep resting and repeating, and keep up your walk for at least twenty minutes.

You will find power walking most exhilarating, and I do urge you to try it out today. If it’s raining or otherwise inclement, you can always find and indoor track or even go to the mall in the early mornings and power walk there.

Always remember, don’t worry about how silly you might look or what people might think of you while doing your exercise. It’s what you look like when you’re dressed up and going out that counts, and you’re going to look so great after all this exercise that you’ll forget all about appearing silly.

By Barbara Johnson
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Foods high in fiber and low in fat and calories have low point values on the Weight Watchers plan. Foods with excess fat, low fibre and lots of sugar can use up your daily points in a hurry.

You can use the following Weight Watchers Points Calculator to help determine the number of points in certain foods. Just enter the calorie count plus the amount of fibre and fat, and the calculator will give you a point value for that item. Most packaged foods will have this nutrional information printed on the label.

The chart on the right shows the typical Weight Watchers daily points allowance, based on body weight.