The benefits of walking 10,000 steps a day

Walking is great exercise. Most experts agree you should walk 10,000 steps a day for better health and fitness. <br/><br/>News on 6 reporter Rick Wells found some recent graduates of the City of Tulsa

Wednesday, July 21st 2004, 10:23 am

By: News On 6

Walking is great exercise. Most experts agree you should walk 10,000 steps a day for better health and fitness.

News on 6 reporter Rick Wells found some recent graduates of the City of Tulsa 10K-a-Day program and one of them had some dramatic results.

More and more people are walking. More than 16-million of us walk for exercise on a regular basis to lose weight or just feel better.

Capitalizing on that is what lead Community Care to bring the 10K a Day program to city of Tulsa employees. Nichelle Slavens with Community Care: "Our goal is to make the employees healthier."

10,000 steps a day. No one benefited more than Roger Spainhower[he's on the left], in fact he could be the poster boy for all the city's healthier lifestyle programs.

"That really got me the last 20 or 25 pounds I've lost is because of the 10K a Day program." When he started with the city four years ago he weighed 288 pounds, in fact he brought his job interview suit along so we could see the difference.

"That's a 52; of course it's over my clothes, pretty dramatic I think." I should think, he started at 288 now he's 218 and his goal is in sight.

"I wanna go under 200, I'm lean and mean at 198." His blood pressure is down his blood sugar is down and of course so has his weight and he feels great.

Don Roberts is the cityâ€™s Traffic Operations supervisor and he has completed the initial program. He didn't experience the dramatic results Roger did, but he feels better. "I still walk more than I did before, but I don't make a conscious effort."

Roger's still walking, and still charting his steps, he's getting close to a million.