Health experts recommend walking for 150 minutes a week. That means walking for 30 minutes a day. Walking – particularly brisk walking – has numerous health benefits.
However, not everyone can walk 30 minutes a day for one reason or another.
The distance or the amount of time you walk depends on your health goals and your ability to walk without over-exerting yourself. Even patients that have a physical disability that impairs their walking should be able to manage some form of walking exercise.
So what can you do if you can’t walk 30 minutes a day?
Consult With Your Doctor
If you have a condition that causes pain, dizziness or abnormal sugar levels that puts you at risk, consult with your doctor to determine if walking is for you.
Ask your doctor to recommend the minimum distance or number of steps you should walk in a single session.
Build Walking into your Daily Routine
Once you have been given the green light from your doctor and you’ve determined safe limits, build a walking routine into your daily activities. You don’t necessarily have to walk for 30 consecutive minutes to feel the health benefits of walking, you can break sessions into 10 minute segments.
Breaking your walking sessions into achievable segments of 10 or 15 minutes is also a good strategy if you are obese and want to lose weight. Setting a low bar helps you to get into a fitness routine and gradually build your momentum, fitness and distance.
There are other strategies you can do to build walking into your daily routines such as walking a longer route to work or home (getting off the bus a stop earlier), walking to the local shops for your groceries instead of a big supermarket shop in the car and using stairs instead of lifts and escalators.
Short Brisk Walk
If a lack of time to walk for 30 minutes straight is your reason for skipping physical activity, why not brisk walk for 10-15 minutes. You can either do this on your way home or set the time aside on an evening.
If you have a young family, take your children to the park. They can ride their bike or tricycle whilst you pick up the pace to keep up with them. Whilst the are playing in the swings, you can be brisk walking around the playground – always keeping an eye on them and close enough to react to accidents.
You can learn how to start a brisk walking program in this article.
Wear a Pedometer
Knowing how far you’ve each day can be an incentive to walk further. Record your personal best and set goals to beat it each week.
If you need even more incentive, download the sweating app. The built-in pedometer not only counts your steps but we convert them into digital tokens you can spend on goods from over 300 online retailers.
In other words, the Sweatcoin app pays to walk.
