The following is an excerpt from Trim The Fat Blog.

“Many of us feel the need to have an exercise buddy when we first start a fitness program. I’ll admit, I had friends lined up almost every day of the week to go for a walk with me when I first began to include exercise in my weight loss journey. It was nice to have company and helped keep me accountable. As I would walk on the fitness trail near my home, I noticed that quite a few people had their dogs either walking or running with them. It never dawned on me before that my dog, Rocky, could have been my exercise buddy, too! We all know the benefits of exercise for ourselves which include weight loss or weight maintenance, heart health and stress management. Turns out, those same exercise benefits apply to our pets, too. There was a study done by the University of Missouri-Columbia that discovered their participants that walked with a dog on a regular schedule, building up to 20 minutes per day, 5 days per week ended up losing an average of 14 pounds per person! And let’s not forget about the pooches! Another study done at Northwest Memorial Hospital’s Wellness Institute found that obese people who tried losing weight with their overweight dogs lost an average of 11 pounds in a year and their dogs lost 16% of their body weight.”

“We can bring our dogs along for any outdoor physical activity whether it’s hiking, backpacking, jogging or running. We’ll get some heart healthy exercise and so will our dogs; plus we’ll have a fun time and lose weight! So, in honor of May being Physical Fitness Month, my uber cool friends at DogToys.com offered to do a giveaway of some items to encourage you and your pup to get fit this month!”

Please visit www.trimthefat-marisa.blogspot.com to enter the contest.