Despite what treadmill manufactures want you to believe, you don’t need to spend a dime to feel better and lose weight, too. Let your feet do the walking around the block, up a mountain trail, along a river or on a track. Walking daily will soon become a habit you look forward to. Even when the day’s activities have worn you down and all you feel like doing is grabbing a beer and the remote, walk a little, even if it’s just to the corner and back.
Fitness experts recommend walking 30 minutes a day seven days a week, but you can break that time down into 10-minute segments done three times a day. Or walk for an hour three times a week. Walking quickly for 20 seconds, then at a slower pace for a minute burns calories faster.
Try this trick, developed by Western Orthopedics and Sports Medicine for its Wednesday Walking program. For instance, you decide to walk from Gunnison to Colorado Springs, a distance of 170 miles. Don’t worry—you’re not actually going to hike over Monarch Pass. Instead, keep track of the miles you walk in your daily routine and multiply each mile by 10. For fun, make a chart or plot the course on a map and move your “hiker” icon after each walk . When you’ve walked 17 miles total, you’ve made the “trek” easily and have earned bragging rights.
So forego the remote, save the beer for after your walk, and take your heart for a jog. It will thank you.