Beyond
Walking

By Ronda Gates, MS

Ronda Gates, MS, is a pharmacy grad who traded her white coat for a pair of athletic shoes and never looked back. Her health promotion business, LIFESTYLES, provides motivational speaking, program development, and fitness assessment services to support people making a lifestyle change. She has developed health promotion programs for many organizations nationwide.
Visit www.rondagates.com for a complimentary subscription to Ronda’s weekly email newsletter.

An early-morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.

— Henry David
Thoreau

Your Commitment to be Fit

After a long holiday season the New Year kicks a resilient spirit in the pants, filling us with renewed hope for a life of balance — including a balanced workout strategy. Whether your focus is on cardiovascular health, flexibility, strength, coordination, or balance, posting the following guidelines in a place where they can be reviewed every day can help keep you on track.

Commit to a Daily Routine. Your exercise program is underway. Now the challenge is to commit to be fit every day. Fit folks have learned that on the days motivation to exercise isn’t their top priority; a 10-minute walk can trigger endorphins that make it easy to keep going until they complete a full workout. Instead of “one day at a time” think “one minute at a time” and you will get past the hardest part of the workout.

Set Personal Exercise Guidelines. The media has led too many of us to believe it takes only 30 minutes of daily exercise to get fit. It’s true that a couch potato in poor health will benefit from a minimum effort, but if you have only 30 minutes, you must intensify your effort to get fit. It’s also true that a 10-minute effort several times a day reaps benefits. To be more than minimally healthy, push yourself to breathlessness long enough to boost metabolism and work beyond that 30-minute minimum.

Choose Exercise Buddies Wisely. Keep motivated by exercising with someone whose fitness level is similar to yours. If your pace is a 15-minute mile, walking with a friend whose pace is a 12-minute mile can predispose you to injury and exhaustion that can make the next day’s workout daunting. The reverse is also true. Walking with someone whose pace is too slow can be discouraging if you believe your body didn’t get the workout it wants or needs. (Don’t misread this advice. Some of my most enjoyable moments are on very slow friendship-building walks with an elder friend, a pal who’s recovering from illness, or a less fit acquaintance.)

Turn Anything You Do into an Exercise Session. Use inconsequential exercise to boost your fitness program. For example, take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator, park farther from your work site front door, trot up stairs, or walk around the house while you talk on your portable phone. We know that 10,000 steps a day are the key to top health. You can log half those by building exercise into everything you do.

Think Time and/or Distance. Someone once remarked that we ought to match exercise minutes with the number of minutes we eat and walk as much as we talk. The best alternative to a highly intensive workout is to balance it with a longer or farther walk. Fit animals are constantly on the go. Fit folks are too.

Exercise — Rain or Shine. The weather will be lousy sometime no matter where you live. Don’t let nasty weather daunt your fitness spirit. You might discover it’s fun to feel the rain or snow on your face or that a warm post-lousy-weather workout shower is the best part of your day. Layering clothes works in any kind of weather.

Think Teamwork. Alternate your walking habit with complementary lifetime sports such as swimming, cycling, horseback riding, or tennis. Consider organizing fellow exercisers into a team to gain the benefits of group support and positive peer pressure. You may discover your motivation soars when you know your team is depending on you.

Make Exercise Its Own Reward. Exercise changes your body’s chemistry. During your workout, periodically push yourself to the edge of your comfort zone. Your body will burn extra calories during the effort then, when you rest, the fuel replenishment process scientists call EPOC (post-exercise oxygen consumption) will continue to keep your metabolism high. Over time the effort pays off with a leaner you.

Take Time Off. Professional athletes know they perform best when their training schedule includes days off. If you do the same, know that your body is making necessary repairs as you rest. Simply commit to get back on track before days off turn into weeks off.

Exercise for Your Body and Your Mind. Scientific research has now proven what exercisers knew — it’s impossible to separate the body and mind. We now know that exercising the body improves your physical and mental health. When your mind is thinking “stay home,” your body will remain ready to take on the world — if you will take that first step. And, when your body would rather spend time on the couch, your mind will yearn for the stress reduction and clarity of thinking that follows movement. Don’t let one or the other prevail. Go for balance — in all you do. That’s the Walk About spirit.