How can I stop getting out of breath?

Fitness

My friend says that if I want to get fit I have to do at least some running. But whenever I try I get out of breath really quickly and give up. What am I doing wrong?
Ryan Maxwell, by email

Matt Hart answers: It’s perfectly possible to get fit without running but it remains incredibly popular because it’s almost impossible to run without getting a decent workout. This is because it’s a load-bearing exercise, but the flipside of this is that you can easily get out of breath. To get started, walk briskly for 30 minutes a day, and over two weeks increase the pace of your walking so that you’re covering more distance in that time.

For the next two weeks, continue to walk at the same speed, but add brief phases of running, making them longer each time, and eventually you’ll be running the whole course. You may not believe this is possible right now, but I’ve seen it happen many times. Stick with it.