Take each step as it comes

Everyone is talking about walking 10,000 steps a day with a pedometer, but is it enough to lose weight?

Walking 10,000 steps a day can reap significant health benefits - if done daily, you'll feel better and help reduce the risk of developing serious diseases such as heart disease, some cancers, diabetes and depression.

The research that this is based on defines someone as sedentary if they take less than 5,000 steps a day, while a person who takes more than 12,500 steps a day is deemed highly active. However, dependent upon your physical activity levels andcalorie intake, 10,000 steps a day without any adjustment to your diet may not result in major weight loss. Even so, steps do have a role to play in preventing weight gain, and in my opinion doing 10,000 steps a day is the best personal health investment you can make.

If weight loss is your objective, you can walk off weight with daily steps and daily timed, continuous, brisker walking sessions. To establish your ideal brisk walking pace, you need to identify your break point: start walking, then increase your pace each 60 seconds (speeding up your arm swing helps) until you're about to break into a jog. This is your break point. Ease back off this pace by 5%-10% and you have your optimum walking pace for weight loss. Do your continuous timed walks at this speed.

If you're new to exercise, follow my four-week progressive plan. In week one, aim for a daily step target of 7,000 steps, plus a daily 15-minute continuous brisk walk. In week two, raise that to 8,000 steps daily, plus a 20-minute walk. In week three, go to 9,000 steps a day, plus a 25-minute walk. And in week four do 10,000 steps a day, plus a 30-minute walk.

Joanna Hall's The Step Counter Diet, which comes with a free pedometer, is published by Thorsons at £6.99.

· Joanna Hall is a fitness expert (joannahall. com). Send your exercise questions to: Weekend, 119 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3ER (weekend@theguardian.com).