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People walking regularly for exercise often walk for more than just that. |
People walking regularly for exercise often walk for more than just that. They are those who have found their sweet spot in walking.
When exercise begins to feel more like enjoyment, you can bet the person who walks will sustain the program against all odds -- and lose weight successfully.
It’s such an obvious thing to make your walking exercise enjoyable for greater motivation. Yet so many people walking go out of their way to make it feel like a chore, if only to feel as if they are doing a mighty lot for weight reduction.
How do you add variety and fun? Here are some suggestions that have come to me from persisting “walkers”:
* Walk with a friend
* Pick nice destinations or road loops
* Walk at sunrise or sunset –- enjoy the view
* Walk at busy hour if you love looking at people
* Have fun building a “walking wardrobe”
* Wear a pedometer for the thrill of it
* Walk in a totally new neighborhood
* Take the postman’s beat, or the policeman’s beat
* Walk along the shoreline
There’s no dearth of ideas for people walking who want to make it fun. If you make a map of your neighborhood, I assure you, you will suddenly discover so many new places to walk that you never thought of before.
To walk more in life you need to first get rid of the notions of movement and distance you currently have. For instance, many of us imagine distances (like the corner store) to be longer than they are. Ask anyone how far it is from their home to some other landmark and you will get as many answers as there are people.
If your imagination suggests it’s a great distance, you will take that car, won’t you? Question your judgment of distances from now on. “Is it walkable distance?” is what you may like to ask yourself.
Also, if you look around there are so many local trips you could walk for … the supermarket, the school, the library, the store, the post office, the park … every neighborhood has these, and they will mostly be walkable.
You can also discover new ways to walk by exploring places to walk you never thought of. For example, one friend of mine became a fan of “bridge-walking”. She would get to some bridge at weekends and do laps across it for the sheer thrill.
There are also so many walking tours -- and you may like to rediscover your city with new groups. You'd be surprised by the energy level among people walking.
As you progress with walking, and start feeling the thrill of it, you may like to graduate from neighborhood walking to those “walking events” -- and become one of those people walking regularly for charity fund-raisers, going on walking treks and vacations, even maybe race walking ...
Don’t for a moment imagine these are only for the very advanced walker. Every such event almost always has an amateur round for the equally enthusiastic but less professional walker.
You don’t have to win any race or prove a point to anyone about your endurance and gumption … but you’ll still feel like a winner every time. In fact, you'll befriend whole new groups of joyous optimists when you just join the people walking. |
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