Walking for Exercise

I'm an off and on sort of exerciser - mostly off. I splurged and got myself a nice treadmill in January, because of all sorts of aerobic exercise, walking is my favorite. I squeezed the machine into my small den and walk and watch television. Since my television watching time often involves doing very little else I figured that I could walk for 45+ minutes every night and not really be taking new time out of my life. So far that's pretty much the case, other than not doing quite as much knitting.

I like how I feel while exercising, and how I feel when I'm done, but that doesn't seem to make much difference when I'm actually getting ready to exercise, or deciding if I'm going to or not. Inertia is a big challenge for me. BUT! I've set myself a destination goal and that helps.

How it works is you pick a spot you want to travel to and get yourself a map. I use online tools like Yahoo or Google maps which not only lets me print out the maps but will give me the mileage from my starting point to my destination. Acquiring a pedometer is also useful, especially if you want to include in your mileage the walking you do throughout the day. Record your distance after every session and plot it out on your map.

In talking to others about this technique I've heard of a number of variations. You can research the places you walk to, learn about the culture and history, take a virtual tour of the place if one exists, and plot a new destination from your previous start. Eventually you could walk clear across your state, or country or continent.