In steps as in walking. Yes, Walking. While walking this morning, I kept the thought of my topic for my next article uppermost in my mind. As I turned the corner onto my street, the thought came to me—write an article about the health benefits of walking.

Walking at 5 a.m. year around in Phoenix Arizona, a.k.a. ‘The Valley’ is lovely—the majority of people are sleeping and the temperature is still cool. I remember the days I walked in South Dakota when the temperature was 50 below zero including the wind chill. I lived in New York and New Jersey metro area 28 years where the temperature reaches minus zero on occasion. Thus, walking in Arizona year around is a dream come true, even though the temperature reaches 110-112 (or higher) several days in the summer—5 a.m. is a cool 70-80 degrees.

According to researchers, if you walk 30-45 minutes twice a day, you will avoid heart disease, kidney disease, stress related diseases, diabetes or any metabolism problems. Don’t forget to hydrate while you walk—especially in the summer.

I heard those moans, groans and screams from here. Who has 60-90 minutes a day to invest in walking?” OK. Rephrase that. Who has 20-30 years to invest in poor health? That is the average number of years the majority of people suffer with various life threatening diseases. I know I don’t. I want to keep on until I am 110 and then decide when I will leave this earth plane. OK, that is me. You can live a healthy life into your 90’s and not die from a disease. You can die because you don’t want to be on this earth plane anymore by simply going to sleep and not waking up.

"Twenty-nine million Americans are in medical debt," says Jennifer Edwards of the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that supports research on health and social issues. A recent Commonwealth study defined those in medical debt as paying bills to health care providers or having large credit card debt or loans against their homes related to medical costs.

"Of those, 70% were insured when they got the health care that put them in debt, and nearly half had used up all or most of their savings," Edwards said.