It seems that there is some new fitness product or machine which surfaces monthly. Every one of these is different, yet all are alike in their claims for effectiveness. "Use what we are selling for a short period of time and transform into someone like the model on our packaging."

That is what we all want to hear. We want minimum investment for maximum results. We will believe almost anything along these lines, largely because of the advancements in technology and in pharmaceuticals. That makes us trust products which sound too good to be true. Perhaps someone has finally done what we have grown up believing to be impossible.

Adding to our openness to the wonders of modern science and technology are extreme makeovers with plastic surgery, personal trainers liposuction, and bone alteration. The results are phenomenal in most cases. If their agents can be trusted, they happen in less than sixty days and their results are supposedly lasting. The only trouble is that their cost is excessive and not covered by insurance.

Most of us cannot afford such procedures. They are simply too much money and take one to two months out of our lives, which we cannot spare. Thus we are relegated to the under fifty dollar bottle of new wonder pills or the new machine made affordable by time payments. There are numerous examples of the former, most of which go out of business in a short period of time. Too, there are numerous examples of the latter. These go from the space-age looking Bowflex machine (which makes a health club membership unnecessary) to an electric muscle contractor (which makes actual exercise unnecessary.)

The hope is that these will make us like the model on the label in time for the beach this summer. That is what they claim to do. That is what we are willing to pay our lately non-existent money for.

Of course, there is on the advertisements as well as on the containers they come in the disclaimer "individual results mat vary." This is in fine print, but it is always there. That is, we only may be the ones who, like the models, make virtual overnight transformations.

The truth is that individual results almost always do vary in the way we do not want to think about. Most of us simply do not benefit from any of these products, whether they are pills or machines. In other words, we are the ones who vary from the ideal--we along with virtually everyone else who orders today in hopes of looking good for the beach by next month.

Possibly there is someone somewhere who has been helped by these fast and easy answers. But if they have, it is always questionable what else was being done and for how long. For instance, if they were taking the latest fat burner, were they also running on a regular basis? Or, if they were using an electric muscle contractor, were they also doing the supposedly unnecessary two hundred daily sit-ups (something which really only takes far less than fifteen minutes a day--a small price to pay for an enviable beach body.) But, all skepticism aside, the new products may work for us.

Whether they work or not is almost unimportant. The fact is that they all cost money--money which we do not have. In a day and age of extremely tight budgets, free is vastly superior to trying anything for which we have to pay. Therefore, what can work so effectively that even an MD might say that it will work?

Walking for fifteen minutes periods is the answer.Even though the medical profession makes it habit of boring us with this recommendation (as if everything else is too dangerous or will lead to our overuse), it is still the best exercise when starting out. It is something that everyone can do,that everyone feels comfortable doing right in their own environment--like around the block; and, which, in conjunction with proper diet and possibly some innocuous green tea capsules, actually will produce the desired effect.

Simply adding this to our daily activities in one or more fifteen minute intervals will help. This is another way of saying, "something is better than nothing." But being a little sophisticated about it will make it even better. Working smarter can actually be better than working harder.

When we do our walking is important. Immediately upon rising to escalate the entire system and then again after each meal to facilitate calorie burning and digestion is optimal. Granted, that may mean as many as four fifteen minute walks per day, but we can cut back to less time, for example eight to five minutes at a crack. That will keep with this article's promise of fifteen minutes per day for free. The important thing is to keep on doing something to ramp up the metabolism, which, for most of us remains nearly dormant in our sedentary lifestyles. Getting our systems going early, and keeping them going, not only mildly counters lethargy, but actually decreases our appetites.

This is a bare minimum routine. Anything more would be better--anything from jogging to cycling to weight-lifting. These will come as the initial fitness levels are raised, making us more interested in various types of sustained motion. We all know this will work, making it unnecessary to use our doctors' favorite word "can."

Yet, we still spend money on the new products with their fantastic promises. Why? Probably because we cannot motivate ourselves to get up, put one foot in front of the other and actually go the distance. Have none of us seen Rocky I? That movie had a real distance--probably ten miles of running per day in addition to punching bag work and at least an hour of sparring with a real opponent. If this was the movie showing our American spirit in the late seventies, where is our Rocky-will today?

Perhaps we let it get pushed too far into the background by way of the pharmaceuticals and easy answers for everything. If so, we ought to cough-up our non-existent money and pay the piper. Being made poorer will at least keep up our hopes that there is an answer to our dilemmas. Who knows, this one might be it-- just like we might win Powerball if only we would play. For certain, living in hope is far better than living in despair.

But, we really could find that the our better answers are within, that is to say around the block a few times every day, rain or shine, up or down, too busy or not. If so, they just may fall into the same category as the other best answers in life--the one in which all contained therein are free.

For further thought on getting started order my e-book "Think and Grow Fit."