Planning Ahead - Want to Walk a Mile?

by Heather Long | More from this Blogger

04 Feb 2007 08:34 AM

There are all kinds of reasons you may want to walk a mile. According to my grandmother, if you wanted to walk a mile then you should just put your shoes on and start walking. In this case, she's not wrong. Walking is one of the easiest of the cardiovascular activities and can be performed by just about anyone, from the most sedentary individual to the most active.

I like to tell people, if you can walk out your front door and get to the mailbox. You're already making your first strides towards good exercise and good health. So you walk to your mailbox for a week. After the first week, walk to the mailbox and then walk down to the next mailbox on your street. Do that for a week. Soon you will be walking three to four houses down and then five and then six and before you know it, you'll be walking the block and then back.

It's Easy

Walking is all about the motion of putting one foot in front of the other. By the time you walk a half-mile and return, you've walked a mile. Most of us can achieve the mile marker in less than six weeks, even if you've never done any kind of serious walking before.

Another trick, this one was offered by a personal trainer I know was that you take your pedometer and you put it on every time you run an errand - for example, walking up to the school to pick up the kids or drop them off; when you go to the grocery store to shop. Check how many steps you make during those errands - if you average around 2000 steps, you can walk a mile.

A mile is not that far and for most of us, when we're walking a certain distance outdoors, we're only actually walking half that distance prior to returning in order to achieve that distance. For most of us, there is an illusion on the journey back that it is shorter. Think about it, when you are driving somewhere new, it may seem to take a while. But when you are driving back home, that drive goes more swiftly.

You are traveling the same distance. But because you know where you are going and you are now more familiar with the route and likely because your home is at the end of that journey - it seems much shorter.

So tell me, can you walk a mile?

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Learn more about Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago.

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