Additional Ways to get more from Your Walk

Go for a Goal
If you feel like you're always scrambling to get your walks in, setting goals may provide the structure you need to stick to your exercise plan. A study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found that workplace programs that encouraged employees to set time-specific, realistic fitness goals (such as how many steps or how long they'd exercise daily or weekly) got twice as many people to exercise regularly than a control group that set no goals. According to study author Rod K. Dishman, PhD, professor of exercise science at the University of Georgia, in Athens, Georgia, clear objectives helped goal-setters know what they were working toward, and this motivated them to make time in their schedules for exercising.

How to get started: Set yourself up for success. Choose a goal that's challenging but also attainable. In other words, don't make it so grandiose that you can't achieve it, like upping your daily steps from 5,000 to 10,000 in one week, or walking five miles a day, five times a week. When setting your goal, also be sure to decide exactly how much you plan to bump up your activity level and in what period of time, says Dishman. For example, you might increase your exercise time by 10 percent each week, or aim to take 1,000 more steps a week. To make that even more doable, create daily goals that will help you achieve your larger one. If you're aiming to walk 1,000 more steps over the week, aim to walk about 150 extra steps a day. Every two weeks, evaluate your progress and readjust, if necessary.


Change Up Your Routine
You might have a favorite walking route, but you should literally veer off the beaten path, especially if you're trying to lose weight. Eventually, your body gets used to your everyday workout (it's called a "routine" for a reason), and your weight loss and strengthening gains will stall. German researchers found that untrained individuals who did a three-day-a-week jogging/walking program saw cardiovascular fitness improvements for the first six months, but after that, nothing, according to a study from Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. To keep progressing, researchers recommend changing your workouts so you continue challenging your body.

How to get started: Boost the intensity of your workouts. Another recent study in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise found that obese women who did three high-intensity sessions of walk-jogging or walks plus two low-intensity walks a week lost substantially more weight over 16 weeks than obese women who did either low-intensity exercise five days a week or nothing. Intimidated by the sound of "high-intensity" exercises? Don't be. According to study author Arthur Weltman, PhD, director of exercise physiology at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, Virginia, it's "something anybody can do, as it's based on your own capabilities." He suggests you try this: Walk at an easy pace for five minutes. Then, increase your pace so that walking feels hard. (For example, if you're measuring your exertion on a scale of 1 to 10 with one being effortless and 10 being super-hard, you should be working between 5 and 7.) Hold that pace for the majority of your walk—if you're walking for 30 minutes, for example, you would try to maintain that pace for about 20 minutes—before cooling down with easy walking. Repeat three times a week (every other day).


Make Your Walks Enjoyable
Feeling like your workout is too tough could leave you with an unexpected consequence: Weight gain. A study in the journal Obesity found a connection between how difficult formerly overweight women perceive exercise to be and how much weight they regain. Women who had completed a year-long diet and fitness program took a treadmill test that measured how hard they thought they were working and how much they actually exerted themselves. A year later, the women who found the test most difficult had gained more weight—an average of 12 pounds—than those who thought it was easier. (How hard they actually worked out didn't predict weight gain.) The reason for their extra pounds? Because of their negative experiences with exercise, the weight gainers simply worked out less.

How to get started: Find a way to make your walks fun. "If you're slogging through something you don't enjoy, you won't stick with it," says lead author David W. Brock, PhD, assistant professor of exercise and movement science at the University of Vermont, in Burlington, Vermont. However, if you turn your walks into something you look forward to, you'll be more likely to work out regularly. Try inviting your best friend to stroll with you once a week, or take a new route through an area with pretty scenery.