Why Walk? Walking regularly is a simple, easy way to get some exercise and enhance your health. It's free, easy to do and provides many health benefits. For example, just walking regularly as part of your everyday life can help you control your weight, and reduce the risk of diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, stroke and high blood pressure. Being outdoors and walking is also a great way to clear your head and relieve stress.
By walking, you become more confident in exploring the neighbourhood and may even meet new friends. Walking is the cheapest, most environmentally friendly means of getting around – and you don’t need any special clothes or equipment! If you have always driven, you may well be surprised by how easily and quickly you can get around on foot. In fact, it’s often as quick to walk as it is to catch a bus or sit in traffic in your car. A big bonus of walking to work or school is that once you have found your route you know exactly how long it will take each day!
Walkit.com is great for helping find routes to where you want to go – you can even choose to stay clear of main roads in the daytime.
How much should I walk?
For good health and well-being, adults are advised to aim for 150 minutes of activity (including walking briskly) a week. This can be broken down so you could achieve it as easily as just taking a 30 minute walk on 5 days of the week.
How fast?
Walking briskly means walking at a pace where you're a little out of breath but can still hold a conversation, but you couldn't sing a song! You will find as you walk more your pace picks up.
Walking at a good pace most people will cover at least 1.5miles in 30 minutes.
How many calories?
Everybody is different and calories burned depends upon your walking speed, the terrain, your weight, metabolism and a number of other factors but walking a mile will burn off around 100 calories.