Plan Today for Tomorrow

Take today to plan a walking route for the weekend and each day in the coming week. Nothing elaborate. Just set a schedule of locations and write it down to check off each day. If you plan for it and anticipate doing it you will get more satisfaction and be more likely to carry through with it.

TODAY: PLAN YOUR WALK DESTINATIONS FOR THE COMING WEEK.

Your Diet Is A Stretch

You need to do a bit of warm up before your daily walk to increase the effectiveness of the exercise and reduce any stiffness that might come later. There are just a few to do to give you a great start.

Hamstrings (back of legs)

1. Sit on the edge of your bed with one leg up and the other on the floor and reach with both hands until you feel the stretch in the back of the leg.

Calf stretch

1. Stand at arms length away from a wall and lean against it.

2. Put one leg straight back and the other bent under you.

3. Keep your back straight and lean your hips forward.

4. Keep rear leg straight with your heel on the ground.

5. Repeat for other leg.

Side stretch

1. Stand with both arms over your head.

2. Lean to one side, then the other.

3. You can also leave your right arm at your side and bend to the right while reaching your left arm reaches overhead, then reverse.

Torso twist

1. Stand with both arms out to side with elbows slightly bent.

2. Feet should be at shoulder width or slightly wider.

3. Twist your torso to the right and then the left, alternating back and forth slowly.

Quadriceps (thigh)

1. While leaning against a wall, reach back with your left hand and grab your right ankle.

2. Pull your foot back and away from your butt.

3. Repeat for the other side.

It really won’t take you long to do these. It’s a good way to start your exercise or even just your day.

TODAY: DO YOUR WARM UP EXERCISES.

Keep “Marching” On

March is ending, but you should be hitting your stride now. No more excuses about it being too cold out to go walking. It doesn’t take anything besides putting one foot in front of the other. Left, right, left. Left, right, left. Out the door and down the street. If you want, you don’t need an mp3 player to give yourself a beat. Hum a marching tune. “76 Trombones” comes to mind. Or try the famous song from Saturday Night Fever “Staying Alive”. It’s got the perfect pace for a nice workout. Of course you’ll need to put on your white suit like John Travolta.

TODAY: HIT THE BRICKS AND WALK.

30 Second Burst Exercise Accelerator

I saw a report today from a university study in Ontario that a half hour of bicycling had the same effect as an hour and a half of moderate pedaling by simply doing 30 second “power bursts” followed by 4 minutes of slow pace cycling. It seems the same might work for other aerobic exercise like walking. Sounds like a great way to get more for less.

TODAY: TRY A POWER BURST WHEN YOU EXERCISE.

How Can You Tell If You Are Really Exercising?

Now you’re eating smaller portions, so the next goal is to exercise more. Okay, maybe the goal is to START exercising. Maybe the best way to think about it is to not call it exercising. Let’s just call it increasing your use of calories. Walking is the easiest. I know you’ve heard it before, and maybe you are already walking some. But the walking has got to be productive without overexerting you. The trick to knowing if it’s being productive is to speed your walk up till you know you are exerting yourself. This makes it self adjusting to your fitness level. When you start that will be a slower pace than when you are more toned. You can always gauge your exercise that way.

Warm up slow, push up to exertion, keep that pace for 10 minutes and ease off to cool down. Or do whatever length of time you can manage. Like the advertising slogan… “just do it!”

TODAY: WALK HARD FOR TEN MINUTES.

A Walk Walk Joke

Since I’m urging you to get out and walk this week, I figured I’d give you a walking joke to make you smile a bit while you’re doing it.

A blonde goes out for a walk. She got down to the river and cannot see a bridge anywhere to get across. She sees another blonde on the other side of the river and yells over to her “How can I get to the other side?” The other blonde looks up and down the river then shouts back, “You’re already on the other side!”

TODAY: TAKE A WALK DOWN BY THE RIVER AND HELP THE FIRST BLONDE YOU SEE.

Get Moving In The Morning

A  little walk in the morning or even just a few stretching exercises will get you limbered up and your metabolism moving. It will also get your insides active to move some of yesterdays food through your system faster. So get up and get going. (In every way.)

TODAY: START THE DAY WITH SOME EXERCISE. ANY EXERCISE WILL DO!