Rosario Dawson is not only extremely beautiful and in great shape, she’s also thinking constantly of the environment, as she reveals in a recent short interview with People magazine. Were she to sum up her fitness philosophy in just a couple of words, those would probably be “ditch the car, start walking,” especially after eating out.

We all know about the hidden dangers of restaurant meals, so Dawson’s piece of advice should weigh twice as heavy in terms of the recommendation of walking home from the diner. This is all the more important, the actress stresses, since few of us do it on our way there since that would make us look “goofy.” So, we choose to take a cab or the personal car instead, thus forgetting that working out – even moderate exercise – can actually curb the appetite, which would mean less chances of overindulging.

“Rosario Dawson refuses to let LA’s good weather go to waste. ‘I live in Venice, so I walk a lot and I bicycle ride. It’s great to take a walk after you have a meal, like just simple things like that,’ says Dawson, who often cruises around town with her deejay boyfriend Mathieu Schreyer. The native New Yorker admits that hoofing it to a restaurant ‘gets us funny looks sometimes because no one really walks here’ – but she’s okay with that. ‘I like being outside,’ she says. ‘I think that’s kind of the point in being in California personally!’” People magazine writes after sitting down with the actress.

Given that the intensity of exercise needed to shed weight efficiently has recently been translated into an average of 100 steps per minute, maintained for a recommended 150 minutes weekly, walking home after dining out (and even before a meal, on the way to the restaurant) can be seen as the ideal way to reach this target. After all, they don’t say persistence is the key to everything in life for nothing, especially since health experts also recommend taking up exercise in a progressive manner, as we informed you a while back.

“We believe that these data support a general recommendation of walking at more than 100 steps per minute on level terrain to meet the minimum of the moderate-intensity guideline. Because health benefits can be achieved with bouts of exercise lasting at least 10 minutes, a useful starting point is to try and accumulate 1,000 steps in 10 minutes, before building up to 3,000 steps in 30 minutes. Individuals can monitor their progress using a simple pedometer and a wristwatch.” researcher Simon J. Marshall, PhD, and leader of a breakthrough study in this sense, was telling the media back in March.