One thing that all people do, although some do it more than others, is walk. There has been a few things over the past few weeks that have gotten me thinking about walking in general. The first was an excellent post about walking from Marks Daily Apple (MDA) which dealt with walking, and the next was a health challenge at my military base that has everyone counting how many steps taken over the course of a week. I have noticed that the longer I am in the military, the more I am working from a desk as opposed to on my feet and outdoors, which is starting to cause me some concern, which led me to this post.
Echoing MDA, we really don’t have to walk that much in our day to day lives. There are so many ways to get us to our destination and walking is not the primary means of doing it. Granted, walking a block or two to get lunch is walking, but it is not really that great a distance as compared to what our ancestors used to have to walk to just get to food. Modern conveniences like cars, buses, subways, and trains all conspire to get us to walk less and I think that we are suffering for it. I will also note that MDA is really fond of VFFs and his article on walking emphasizes the benefits of minimalist footwear.
Health Benefits
A Google search on the benefits of walking turn up numerous results. A few that I saw frequently were:
- Reduced stress
- lower blood pressure, and
- environmental benefits
I can attest to the stress reduction aspect of walking. I was on a year long course away from my family and I found that whenever I was getting stressed, walking would help reduce that feeling. After a time, I found that whenever I was feeling stressed I would want to go for a walk. The effect of getting out in the sun, or moon, or even rain always made me feel better and allowed to me to focus on my work.
Leave nothing but footprints. The picture is from when I was walking along the shore of Lake Ontario on one of my stress reduction walks.
Walking Challenge at Work
Besides health benefits, there are also recreational benefits to walking as well. My base has a walking challenge on this week and they have given out pedometers to people who are participating it in order to track how much they walk over the course of a week.
I have two observations now that the week is over and I have the total amount of steps my family and I have taken over the course of a week.
The first observation is that I don’t walk as much as I was hoping I did. The recommended number of steps an adult should take is over 10,000 a day. I thought that with my exercise program and what I did, that I would easily exceed this amount. Rather I found that I am actually just barely meeting the daily recommendation. Granted, a few days I exceeded it, such as when I golfed, but for the most part I am just getting slightly over the recommended amount.
The second observation is that I thought my kids would have a hard time meeting the recommended amount of steps they need, which is over 14,000 a day. Instead they easily meet it. My daughter was at 15,000 steps for the day and this was before she went outside for another hour to play after supper. My son also had no problems meeting the amount either, and neither one said they did more then they normally would in a day for this challenge. Regardless, this challenge has highlighted how much more I should walking and, reassuringly, that my children are active.
One thing that I found while walking and wearing VFF is how much more you can feel with your feet. This is self evident and one of the selling features on the VFF website, but I still had to say it. There is huge variety of terrain that you cross just in the city that unless you are wearing VFF, you would never feel. Wearing shoes kind of numbs you to what you are walking on. In my VFF, I can feel the texture in a man-hole cover, the ripples in the ground that you can’t see on a lawn, the different temperatures of asphalt to pavement to shaded sidewalks and in the winter the sensation of walking on snow. In shoes or boots, you don’t really notice it and that is a shame.
My kids walking in a stream.
Since I have realized I don’t walk as much as I thought I did, I am going to make it a point to try and walk more whenever I get the chance. Does anyone spend a lot of time on their feet walking, or are most of you like me, where your work has you chained to a desk and little time for moving? How about your children? Do you know how much they move around in the course of a day? Let us know in the comments!