"Will Walking Work For Me?"

“Will walking work for me?”

Ladies, this is the question I’m asked the most, which means you’re in excellent company! The answer is YES!  As long as you are healthy enough to walk, walking will work for you.

You know, I understand your question completely. Before my life crisis I had always enjoyed walking but I believed I needed to belong to a gym and be taking challenging fitness classes in order to be truly healthy. After becoming a daily walker I realized I was in excellent shape, had great stamina and tons of energy, plus I was happier. (Happier was amazing for me because I’ve suffered from clinical depression for much of my adult life.)

In the past few years doctors and researchers worldwide have published numerous reports on the benefits of walking. The truth is that a regular walking habit addresses some of the most prevalent and deadly health problems we women face today. Doctors have found that the simple act of walking is a big-time game changer for us.

But let’s get to what a lot of us really, truly want: to lose weight and feel good about how we look. To like the woman we see in the mirror, maybe even love her. If this is what you want, walking will work for you--if you give it the time, energy, and commitment required. I’m not going to lie to you and say that walking is a quick fix--it’s not. Reports have shown that establishing a new habit takes 66 days so you’ve got to be willing to give walking a chance. Changing your body is entirely possible, losing weight is entirely possible, feeling better about yourself is entirely possible. We just need to enter that realm of possibility and make the shifts required to achieve our goals.

Shift #1: Acknowledge that change takes time.

So let’s be realistic about our time! Many of us are maxed out on time (and money and energy). We need a simple, time and cost effective way to exercise that fits our crazy lives just as they are right now.  We need to enter the realm of possibility that a solution is at hand--we simply need to shift what we are doing with the time we have!

Shift #2: Change what we’re doing with the time we have.

Here’s three quick changes that will have you on your way to loving the woman in the mirror:

1. Stand more than you sit. (Sitting is literally killing us. Sixty-six days of standing more than sitting will work wonders!)
2. Walk as much as you possibly can throughout your day. (Those cliches you’ve heard about adding steps to your day are absolutely true: park your car in the farthest spot in the lot and take the stairs vs the elevator. Do this for 66 days and you will see and feel a difference!)
3. Go for a 25 minute brisk walk every day after lunch. (Shift your lunch “hour” to 30 minutes and give yourself the exercise your body, mind and spirit deserve by going for a brisk walk. 66 days of walking at lunch will change your life in ways you simply can’t imagine.)

Walking will work for you. Walking will help you lose weight, get in shape, feel better about yourself, improve your mood, increase your creativity, lower your stress and so much more. But like everything else in life, you have to DO IT to realize the benefits. We can’t think our way to our goals or wish our way to our goals. However, we can WALK OUR WAY TO OUR GOALS. Walking works!