Walking 10,000 Steps a Day -- Where Can You Do It?

You can contribute to walking 10K steps/day in your home, immediately outside your home, and in your neighborhood. You can contribute to walking 10K steps/day near your desk, in your greater work place, and outside your work place. And you can contribute to walking 10K steps/day where you shop, where you engage in social activities, and where you help others.

Walking opportunities "at home" abound. You can get up and walk around during television commercials. A cordless phone or wireless phone will let you walk around your home while chatting with others. And you walk within your home within your home while performing inside chores. Immediately outside your home, you can walk while working in your garage, while gardening, and while putting out and retrieving a trashcan or recycling bin. If you let the phrase "at home" include your local neighborhood, you can find even more "at home" opportunities to walk. You can walk to neighbors' homes. You can walk a dog. You can walk with your children or grandchildren around the neighborhood. (What a great example to set for them as well as a way to build your relationships with them!) And you can go for neighborhood walks on your own or with your partner.

Walking opportunities "at work" abound, too. You can get up and walk around between meetings, and you can encourage others to have walking meetings with you. Beyond your work area or a meeting room, you can walk to restrooms on other floors in your building and around your building during breaks. Because you can extend the phrase "at work" to include going to lunch or visiting clients, you can find away-from-the-office opportunities to walk during the work day. For example, you can park your car at the far end of a parking lot that serves your dining destination or your client's office building.

Walking opportunities that are not "at home" and not "at work" abound, too. Extending the previous example, you can find walking opportunities when shopping by looking for parking slots as far away from the front door as possible. (Test this: See how often you walk by a driver idling for a near-the-door space as you head to the front door from your far-away parking slot!) Speaking of shopping, you can do a lot of walking by window-shopping in a larger mall. You can find walking opportunities in social situations such as bowling alleys and the sidelines of football and soccer games. And you can find walking opportunities in volunteer activities -- everything from visiting shut-ins to 5K charity walks.

Taking 10K steps/day can become a fun game, if you let it. Develop an opportunistic outlook, and you should soon find more than enough opportunities to walk at least 10K steps/day!