"Can I put my finger on your bottom?" It's only the second time we've met but Joanna Hall – fitness expert, walking coach and diet specialist – is not one to muck about. We are speeding along Regent's canal in east London where Joanna is teaching me to walk properly for the first time in my life. The bottom fondling is to check my glutes are firing away. Meanwhile, she is hollering instructions: "Lift those hips", "Pick up the pace", "Feel that lovely movement of the spine".
Walking can change your body and give you real and definite health benefits – if you do it properly. It turns out I've been walking badly as long as I've lived. And I'm not the only one. "In my opinion, 99% of the population don't walk correctly," says Joanna, who is on a one-woman mission to correct that, having developed a walking technique that increases fitness, stamina and helps you lose weight.
God knows I need it, having developed an unshiftable paunch and an amazing capacity to do absolutely no exercise whatsoever since the birth of my second child. With a full-time job, a toddler and a baby, it seems impossible to find the time. I'm a pretty typical case, says Joanna, who believes most of the health and fitness industry – with it's unused gym memberships and impossible-to-stick-to diets – just sets you up for unobtainable goals and inevitable feelings of failure.
Her aim is to build walking goals into people's every day lives: instead of aiming to get to the gym every week, we should choose to walk to work, to the shops and on all those errands when we usually drive or take the bus.
Joanna breaks me in gently with one of her Walk Off Weight Champneys spa weekends where, together with a number of other couch potatoes, I combine a bit of pampering with an introduction to her technique. My boyfriend is sceptical when I tell him. "You're taking lessons in how to walk?" he scoffs. And I admit that, on paper, it sounds suspicious.
But it turns out that walking right involves a lot of concentration. The basic technique involves striking the ground with the heel, rolling through the foot and pushing off with your toes (not as easy to keep up as it sounds). On top of that, you have to keep the pelvis straight by imagining a glass of water resting on each hip, bending and swinging your arms at a 90-degree angle, while keeping the spine tall.
When you have mastered the technique, it's time to address the pace, the optimum speed being about 5-10% slower than the point you break into a jog. In the first instance, it's exhausting just thinking about it, especially when, like me, you're used to ambling around parks with a pushchair at no particular speed. But there is nothing like knowing that you could lose up to 10lb (or 10 inches) in a month doing this, to keep your mind concentrated.
By the end of the weekend I am walking tall and determined, and return home armed with a pedometer and a lot of good intentions – Joanna has instructed us to increase our average number of steps by 1,000 a day to get the full effect. So, running late for lunch with a friend, I find myself powering along to get there in time. I even find myself hurrying my poor two-year-old around the zoo at quite a pace, concentrating more on rolling through my foot and reaching my optimum walking pace, than the baby meerkats she is so enamoured with.
I find that the new regime helps me not only fall in love with walking, but also fall in love with London all over again. Back in the capital, I join one of Joanna's 28-day walking courses, where she escorts and supports us on walks along the river. (She also advises on diet and sets homework goals, so we don't slack off between meetings.) One winter's day, as our group speeds its way between Tower bridge and London bridge, with the wind in our hair and the sun on our faces, I find myself thinking that there could be no better way to spend a Saturday morning.
Meanwhile, the boyfriend has gone from incredulous to delighted. "It's the first time you've walked at a decent pace for years," he says one day when we step out together. With each walk, I come away feeling fitter and taller. But I have to admit that the most glorious day of the whole regime arrives when someone asks the new mum's most coveted question: "Have you lost weight?" The answer is yes. I've dropped a dress size and can now fit into my pre-pregnancy clothes. It's amazing what you can do with a walk in the park.
Join the Walkactive club
Joanna Hall's nationwide walking club, Walkactive, promotes walking to increase fitness, improve health, manage weight and tone your body. It's specifically designed to ensure you're achieving the maximum health benefits from walking, and offers a range of events and product discounts, including walking programmes and walking challenges. We're offering Guardian and Observer readers a discounted annual membership for just £55 (normal price £65). Simply register at joannahall.com and enter the discount code JHGJAN10 (offer valid until 28 February).
