I enjoy walking and it frees me to enjoy dessert without gaining weight. I do tend to do it seasonally and I’ve had a couple of dog scares on my street so I can’t listen to my music in my preferred style, which is cranked, but it’s the perfect exercise for me.
I don’t exactly walk FOR exercise, I walk in order to clear my head and experience the nice mental state that I mostly only get on long walks. But it’s my primary form of exercise nonetheless.
In 2011 I had a knee operation and (because that one didn’t fix a damn thing) again in 2012, and for awhile was worried that beyond making it down the block to the corner deli and back, my walking days might be over. Fortunately, they aren’t, and I spent 2013 celebrating by setting a personal record for max distance walked in a day: 50 miles!
I don’t necessarily advise such distances (especially without working up to them gradually) but you’re a lot more likely to get to be an old codger if you can do 10 any time you feel like it (and have the time to do so).
Yes. I shoot for 5 miles a day and hit it most days. 10000 steps is the goal, 15000 a good day (have a Fit Bit).
Supermarket is a mile and I try to get groceries on foot. Daily Starbucks is a three mile round trip.
I walk every day, if possible, and I’ve been doing it for a couple of years. I don’t walk on rainy days. It never gets cold enough here for that to stop me.
On work days I walk at lunch time. On weekends, I have 3 or 4 routes that I use. I always walk in the mornings after breakfast on weekends.
The route I take at lunch time now is about 1 hour and 5 - 10 minutes. When I first started, I just walked on the (mostly level) bike trail next to work. For the last year, I’ve been climbing the local hill. It has about 600 feet elevation gain, and I really power up it, so it’s quite a good workout, with low stress on my body.
My routes on weekends are all 2 - 4 miles away, so I drive to the start of the hill and start there. They average 1.5 hours long.
I just use my regular tennis shoes to walk during the week. I’ll wear hiking boots on my weekend walks.
I always listen to podcasts while I walk. They keep me entertained and distract me from how hard I’m breathing.
Walking on flat ground isn’t exercise for me any more. I’m in good enough shape that I don’t break a sweat on them. I need hills to feel like I’m getting some exercise.
So what does my walking do for me? I think it keeps me in decent shape and increases my stamina. Mentally, it’s “me” time. It lets me be entertained and also casually think about stuff that’s going on. And it’s relaxing.
J.
One of my BILs has been doing that for the last twenty years. He and a couple of friends get together every year for a week and hike another twenty miles up the trail.
That’s how I feel about it. I have a three-mile loop from my house to the botanical gardens at the nearby university that I walk most days, unless I need to go to the grocery store to pick up a few things or the nearest branch of the library. Both are only a few blocks away and it’s easier to walk there than have to fight traffic to get there.
When it gets warmer I have a hiking spot off the Blue Ridge Parkway closest to my house. It’s a decent hike with some challenging spots–mainly narrow spots in the path and negotiating up a small waterfall at one point. I see some people running down that trail which strikes me as completely insane. The trail is full of rocks poking up and there’s a few spots that have significant runoff after rainstorms.
As for shoes, I have a pair of New Balance hiking shoes that I love except for the fact one of them has a hole in the toe right now. :mad: As soon as I get my taxes straightened out I’m going to get a new pair.
I have a little cart something like one of these that I use all the time. I only use my car to get groceries very infrequently - when I need bulky paper towels or something. I walk to get groceries with my little cart two or three times per week.
I walk about a mile each day at lunch time. Plus, it’s about a half mile from the parking lot to my building, so two miles each work day. It doesn’t sound like much, but at a decent pace it’s a fine bit of exercise.
I walk my dog to exercise her, every day, rain or shine. Damn dog should deliver the mail. We shoot for two miles a day and I’ll do that walk twice on my days off. (So, weekends = 4-5 miles.) I usually just wear some crappy old sneakers, sometimes flat boots. I’ve been known to do the entire walk in flip flops.
I use the MapMyWalk app on my phone so I know how much distance we’ve covered. After plugging in some data about me (height, weight, etc.), the app gives a count of how many calories burned. While all this walking is doing the dog a lot of good, I find that, for humans, it’s shit exercise. Two miles burns 150 calories or less. That’s not even a whole donut! I have to go actually work out after the dog walks. I view the dog walking as a warm up, not the actual exercise. Just doesn’t do that much good considering it takes 40-60 minutes to walk 2 miles.
That’s one reason why I try to take hilly walks. According to apps, I’m not burning many calories, but they don’t account for the amount of hill climbing I’m doing. Especially the one in my neighborhood I call the Killer Hill. There are many times I’m tempted to stop and catch my breath, but I usually bulldoze right through it because that way I get to the top quicker. That’s a workout!
This is why I try to work lots of waking in to my daily routine rather than “going for a walk” for exercise. I barely notice the half hour during my commute, and that added to a stroll to the store in the evening add up to a few miles a day with no special effort. It’s not really enough to count as a fitness routine, but it’s enough to give me some flexibility in my diet.
I feel extremely strongly about living in a walkable community.
On the flip side of that coin, humans can walk all day - we really are built for walking.
I walk a lot now but i don’t really consider it exercise as I am just leisurely strolling around. I was getting really sedentary because my aging knee joints were causing me so much trouble. A friend convinced me to try walking and see if it helped. Although it was hard at first eventually they began to improve. Now if I don’t walk for a while they begin to seize up again. So if the weather is bad I’ll go to the local shopping mall and walk it from end to end a few times.
The wife and I walk for exercise. She walked a little over 500 miles last year including a couple of half marathons. She also walks quite a bit at her work - often around 3 miles a day. I bought her a FitBit a couple of months ago. Much nicer than a cheap pedometer to track exercise.
I walked about 300 miles last year including one half marathon. I was suppose to do another half but broke a toe 4 days beforehand. I also ride my bicycle over 4,000 miles a year. I use a Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS unit to track outside walking mileage.
We just got back from walking 2.7 miles in 42 minutes at the Y. That’s about 3.8 mph so we weren’t burning up the track!
I wear a pedometer and walk at least 10,000 steps every day. I used to listen to music, but eventually I got sick of every single song I own and switched to audiobooks. If the book is good, I walk the 10K all at once. If not, I walk a half hour here and a half hour there until I hit the magic number.
Wow- what great replies. I was patting myself on the back for my hour walks, but I can see I’m in the minors where this group is concerned.
Of course, walking is exercise! Walking is good for human beings in a zillion ways, and the least of them is how many calories you burn. The body is meant to be in motion. It doesn’t have to be fast, high-impact motion… just gentle, steady motion is good for the joints, muscles, heart, lungs… everything.
Benefits of walking, according to the American Heart Association:
I walk 1.5-5.0 miles a day on a treadmill at home. Therefore I don’t need to clean up before I get sweaty and then have to clean up again. I don’t have the knees for running. I’ve got a shelf over the treadmill and when I’m working, I go down to about 2.3 MPH. I’m typing this from the treadmill, in fact, at 2.6 MPH with a cat lying on the shelf next to my laptop.
I love walking, when we lived in Italy 2to4 kms a day. In the States, I walk around the neighborhood, ( not the same) but right now the damn bunion is killing me:(