Happy National Walking Day! Every year, the American Heart Association sponsors National Walking Day on the first Wednesday in April. They use this day to remind people about the health and other benefits of taking a walk.Why not celebrate with a walking meeting?
To inspire us to keep up the pace,AmericaWalks reminds us that it is also #walkatwork month.
Ever since I strapped a Fitbit on my wrist three years ago, every day has been a walking day for me. My daily goal is 15,000K steps. Here’s how I do it: I get in a walk of about 5,000 steps first thing in the morning, a lunch time stroll, and a brisk walk at the end of the work day. But throughout the day, I get a move on it. I use a standing desk, take phone calls walking, take mini-breaks to pace the length of my office, and schedule walking meetings.If it is a travel day, I pace in the airport. I’ve shared a lot more of my tips in my soon to be published book, The Happy Healthy Nonprofit, with co-author Aliza Sherman.
The benefits of walking have been transformational. In addition to improving health bio-metrics and dropping 40 pounds, I feel so much better and less sluggish. I’m even more productive!
Recently, Fitbit announced some new tracking features on its app after their data scientists crunched some numbers recently and discovered some Fitbit users aren’t moving for prolonged periods throughout the day—on average, those periods can last for 90 minutes, and over the span of one day they add up to more than 7 sedentary hours per day. Even if you walk everyday, being on your backside for many hours has been linked to an increased risk of colon cancer,heart disease, and type 2 diabetes.
According to research, walking for a few minutes every hour has been shown to reduce these side effects of being on your chair. To help to remember to get up, Fitbit has added Hourly Activity and Stationary Time in the Fitbit app, when paired with its devices.
You can now set an hourly activity goal. Fitbit suggests that in addition to the CDC health guideline to fit in 2.5 hours of moderate exercise each week, aim to also take 250 steps each hour, which is roughly two to three minutes of walking. As your Hourly Activity time goes up, you’ll notice a decrease in your Stationary Time patterns over time.
Are you ready to get a move on it? National Walking Day is a great day to get started walking everyday!
