You don’t have to change your schedule drastically to add a little bit of walking. Here are some tips to help you find the time to get moving!
- Set your alarm fifteen or twenty minutes early. Before anyone else is up, you can throw on your sweats and sneak out for a quick walk.
- Take twenty minutes out of your lunch hour at the office for a walk. You’ve still got forty minutes to eat, and you’ve added a walk to your day. Even a few laps around the parking lot give you a chance to get out into the sunshine and fresh air.
- If you have to pick up the kids from sports, show up fifteen or twenty minutes early and take a walk around the field!
- If you have to pick the kids up from school, show up fifteen or twenty minutes early and walk around the school grounds. Maybe the school has a track you can walk on? If you can’t make it early, have the kids drop their backpacks in the car and you can all walk together! That would be a great time to talk about everybody’s day, too.
- Have a dog? Dogs love walks! Keep in mind that dogs also like sniffing, so your walk will be stop-and-start.
- Going shopping? Instead of circling and fighting for the nearest spot, park at the far end of the row and walk.
- If you’ve got a choice between elevator and stairs, take the stairs. The extra effort will get your heart pumping!
- Instead of driving everywhere, think about some places that are close enough to walk to. For me, I’ve got the library just three blocks away, and the drug store four blocks away. If I’m not making a big trip, I’ll even walk to the food store, which is eight blocks away.
- Take fifteen minutes after dinner and have the whole family go for a stroll around the neighborhood.
- When you go to the food store for a few items, take your time and walk up and down every aisle anyway. You’d be surprised how much walking area the food store actually has!
- Take the ten thousand step challenge. See if you can actually walk ten thousand steps in one day! Ten thousand sounds like a lot of steps, but you might be surprised at how much you walk in a regular day without realizing it!