Travel Fit Tip: Walk Your Way to Fitness

Walking is a fabulous and fabulously easy way to get your exercise. I like it for a variety of reasons:

• It's easier on the joints than running.
• When it's cold out, I don't mind walking while bundled up. (Versus running, which is a pain if you have to wear a lot of clothes.)
• When it's hot out, I can walk without getting as sweaty as running, hopefully negating the need to take a second shower for the day.
• Although we should all have stretching as a part of our regular workout routine, I know the realities of traveling often dictate cutting things short. Walking is easy enough that skipping stretching for a day or two won't cause most of us too much grief or pain.
• I can multi-task while walking, which is tough with other forms of exercise.
  

Walking for 30 minutes at a 4 mph pace burns about 100 calories per 100 pounds of body weight. Not too shabby!

Many experts have proclaimed 10,000 steps per day as an ideal target for weight loss.

I recently got a pedometer, and will be tracking my steps per day. I'll publish the results in this blog entry along with more tips, so check back on a regular basis for updates.

Start your 10,000 steps to fitness program by getting your pedometer from Amazon today.

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Walk Your Way to Fitness

The good news is that on a travel day, you're probably going to walk quite a bit. The bad news is that on a non-travel day, most of us are very sedentary.

Here are a few results from my non-scientific tracking. Your results may vary.

• Typical, inactive day--4300
  
• Going to client meeting (from parking lot to office, around office a bit, and back again)--640
• Lunch (from parking lot to restaurant and back again)--550
• Walking (30 minutes @ 4 mph)--3900
• Elliptical cross trainer (30 minutes @ 60 rpm)--3700

Watch our blog for more updates yet to come!