Question: Are 15 Minute Walks Any Good? My walking is in 15-minute intervals, four times a day on most days. Is walking the 15 minutes four times a day helping me to lose weight?

Answer: Walking for 15 minutes, four times a day burns as many calories as walking steadily for an hour. There are benefits to combining them into one longer walk, but you need to weigh that against what you enjoy doing and what fits into your schedule.

The American Heart Association's 2007 exercise guideline for healthy adults recommends 30 minutes of moderately intense exercise, such as brisk walking, 5 days a week. But they always say that the 30 minutes can be broken up into 2 to 3 bouts of exercise of 10 to 15 minutes.

After walking steadily for approximately 45 minutes, your body has burned off the available sugars (glycogen) it has stored up. Now it needs to begin to burn fat. Walking is a good way to turn the body on to burning stored fat. If you walk for 30 minutes or less, you are still burning calories, but they are the stored sugar calories (glycogen) rather than having to dip into the stored fat.

Question: Is Walking 15 Minutes Helping Me Any?

Answer: Yes your body has burned calories that it wouldn't have burned. If you are on a low calorie diet, your body will still be burning fat as it doesn't have enough calories to get through the day. But there might be a slight advantage if your walks were strung together so they were 45 minutes or  more, you may burn a bit more fat each day. Your body replaces the burned glycogen either through the calories you eat or through breaking down some stored fat. If you eat more calories than your body needs, it stores it right back again as fat. Diet and exercise are both key to losing weight.

Question: What Do I Do Now?

Answer: Mall walking is easy, convenient and most malls open early for the walkers. Bring a friend, talk and walk to make the time go by faster. The information desk at most malls provide a guide to distance walked. The malls offer a guaranteed flat terrain, stairs for added challenge and easy access.

Sarah Collins, Exercise Physiologist, St. Vincent's Medical Center