“A lot of weight. I won’t say the number, but I found the magic numbers on the treadmill. Slowly but surely. It’s all happy.”

Walking is what I call the “gateway exercise for weight loss.” If you just look at the number of calories burned you wouldn’t think it would be good for weight loss but this is not the full story. Walking helps preserve muscle, which is a 24 hour fat burning furnace. Just 45 minutes of walking will keep your metabolism up for 20 hours post exercise. It also helps keep insulin levels lower so you don’t store as much fat. Lastly, if that wasn’t convincing enough, the biggest losers of all time who have on average lost over 70 lbs and kept it off for an average of 6 years list walking as their number one exercise.

As Aretha says “Walk on By…”

The “Queen of Soul,” Aretha Franklin, has signed up with Jenny Craig in preparation for her upcoming wedding to boyfriend Willie Wilkerson next month. She tells Sister 2 Sister magazine “I’m at 1,750 calories a day and I’m starving. You just have to get used to portions and changing your lifestyle.”

On her previous experience with Jenny
“I lost 23 or 24 pounds to begin with, but it’s kind of a strain when you get to 23 or 24 pounds. That’s why I got off of it. It’s a strain because you’re eating the Jenny Craig-type meals, which are very good, but you can only eat them for so long before you want some barbecue ribs or some pigs feet. Once you get off that Jenny Craig thing and you start eating what you’ve been eating, it’s all over.”

We wish Aretha the best of luck but, by not adopting lifestyle changes she can live with, this sounds like a temporary fix.