4 ms·

Any amount of walking is good for you. The steps help certain personality types get it done, but isn't for everybody. Just park your car the furthest from your

Any amount of walking is good for you. The steps help certain personality types get it done, but isn't for everybody. Just park your car the furthest from your office and you'll feel better. I walk to lunch and the round trip is about 20 minutes. I feel better after every one. Sometimes when I need a break at work, I'll just take a 5-10 minute walk and I come back ready to go. It's quite amazing.

skate22 9y ago
I agree, i even get off two subway stops early every day for a forced 10-15 minute walk. Rain, snow, forgot my umbrella, I still do it. I leave my house when its dark, and get home when its dark again. My walk to and from the subway and going out for lunches are pretty necessary with this schedule. Necessary in this case for peace of mind. I do however think that the surfaces we walk on do make a difference in how 'good' walking is for us. Spending long times stqnding on hard surfaces tends to make my joints ache far sooner than a more padded surface like grass.
- piva00 9y ago
  I do the same, my commute from home to the office is very short, I take one station of a commuter train and two subway stations, most days I have enough time to kill that I forgo the subway trip and walk from and to the train station. Takes me about 15 minutes and now during winter the morning walk is one of the few times on weekdays that I'm outside with sunlight. It's that walk and then my walk to/from the gym during lunch, 35 minutes total that I have sunlight for 5 days/week...
croon 9y ago
> Any amount of walking is good for you. The steps help certain personality types get it done, but isn't for everybody. Yes, I think this is where either most recommendations go wrong, or possibly how people read those recommendations. You probably strengthen some ligaments and a few muscles from walking, but I assume most of the benefit comes from slightly raising your V02max. If the recommendation is walking, that filters out anyone who doesn't like walking. If the recommendation is raising your V02max, that applies to anyone who can learn what that means, and then apply it to anything they can enjoy doing, whether that is to: * drop your hat and pick it up from the floor 200 times a day, or * take the stairs a few times and only use every other step, or * put on a short playlist of your favorite songs to dance to when no one is watching * etc It's a difficult balance between recommending something that focuses at the heart of the issue, or using extremely lossy compression on your recommendation to distill it down to "do X Y times a day".
- Clubber 9y ago
  Agreed. I personally like walking because it's something I have to do anyway, I just make the walk a little longer. For me that's super easy to fit in my day without having to carve out time out to go to the gym or something. Way back in the dinosaur era, my football coach told us to do pushups or sit ups during commercials when we watched tv. I never really got into that habit, but it's a good tip if you find yourself in the rare situation where you have to watch a commercial now a days.
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  I think most people prefer to use the "do X Y times a day"; I mean take dieting, it boils down to eat less than you use - cut calories. But figuring out the how and what is both hard and boring, and not something you can drop in conversations. Instead, doing keto, primal diet, gluten-free (as a diet choice), vegetarian/vegan, and a fuckton of branded diet programs both tell you exactly what to eat (or what to not eat in some cases), instead of telling you to eat less calories and/or move more. "Take 10K steps a day" is a lot more actionable than "Move more". It's making a chore SMART (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria)
  - Clubber 9y ago
    Yes, I agree that most people respond to a planned out regimented routine. The danger of that, at least for me, is if you miss one or two, it's super easy to feel defeated and get out of the habit. For me, just extending walks I normally take (car to the the store, car to the office) makes it brainless.
  - croon 9y ago
    Like I said, I'm torn on it, and I agree with what you're saying. But as someone who people usually come to for advice on this (as a hobbyist), I can't understate the amount of people who reads keto as "eating more fat" (instead of cutting carbs), and gluten-free as "i'll find as much crap food as i can that says 'gluten free' on it". If they get a complete meal plan and they're disciplined it works fine, but I think at some point if you don't understand why something is a recommended diet, it's probably because your heart isn't really in it to do it, meaning you won't stick to it either way.

skate22 9y ago

I agree, i even get off two subway stops early every day for a forced 10-15 minute walk. Rain, snow, forgot my umbrella, I still do it. I leave my house when its dark, and get home when its dark again. My walk to and from the subway and going out for lunches are pretty necessary with this schedule. Necessary in this case for peace of mind. I do however think that the surfaces we walk on do make a difference in how 'good' walking is for us. Spending long times stqnding on hard surfaces tends to make my joints ache far sooner than a more padded surface like grass.

piva00 9y ago
I do the same, my commute from home to the office is very short, I take one station of a commuter train and two subway stations, most days I have enough time to kill that I forgo the subway trip and walk from and to the train station. Takes me about 15 minutes and now during winter the morning walk is one of the few times on weekdays that I'm outside with sunlight. It's that walk and then my walk to/from the gym during lunch, 35 minutes total that I have sunlight for 5 days/week...

croon 9y ago

> Any amount of walking is good for you. The steps help certain personality types get it done, but isn't for everybody. Yes, I think this is where either most recommendations go wrong, or possibly how people read those recommendations. You probably strengthen some ligaments and a few muscles from walking, but I assume most of the benefit comes from slightly raising your V02max. If the recommendation is walking, that filters out anyone who doesn't like walking. If the recommendation is raising your V02max, that applies to anyone who can learn what that means, and then apply it to anything they can enjoy doing, whether that is to: * drop your hat and pick it up from the floor 200 times a day, or * take the stairs a few times and only use every other step, or * put on a short playlist of your favorite songs to dance to when no one is watching * etc It's a difficult balance between recommending something that focuses at the heart of the issue, or using extremely lossy compression on your recommendation to distill it down to "do X Y times a day".

Clubber 9y ago
Agreed. I personally like walking because it's something I have to do anyway, I just make the walk a little longer. For me that's super easy to fit in my day without having to carve out time out to go to the gym or something. Way back in the dinosaur era, my football coach told us to do pushups or sit ups during commercials when we watched tv. I never really got into that habit, but it's a good tip if you find yourself in the rare situation where you have to watch a commercial now a days.
Cthulhu_ 9y ago
I think most people prefer to use the "do X Y times a day"; I mean take dieting, it boils down to eat less than you use - cut calories. But figuring out the how and what is both hard and boring, and not something you can drop in conversations. Instead, doing keto, primal diet, gluten-free (as a diet choice), vegetarian/vegan, and a fuckton of branded diet programs both tell you exactly what to eat (or what to not eat in some cases), instead of telling you to eat less calories and/or move more. "Take 10K steps a day" is a lot more actionable than "Move more". It's making a chore SMART (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria)
- Clubber 9y ago
  Yes, I agree that most people respond to a planned out regimented routine. The danger of that, at least for me, is if you miss one or two, it's super easy to feel defeated and get out of the habit. For me, just extending walks I normally take (car to the the store, car to the office) makes it brainless.
- croon 9y ago
  Like I said, I'm torn on it, and I agree with what you're saying. But as someone who people usually come to for advice on this (as a hobbyist), I can't understate the amount of people who reads keto as "eating more fat" (instead of cutting carbs), and gluten-free as "i'll find as much crap food as i can that says 'gluten free' on it". If they get a complete meal plan and they're disciplined it works fine, but I think at some point if you don't understand why something is a recommended diet, it's probably because your heart isn't really in it to do it, meaning you won't stick to it either way.