by Cate Ferguson

Created on: October 12, 2009   Last Updated: October 16, 2009

Do you have 15 minutes?

Have a meeting but you've arrived a little early, finished your lunch and feel the need to stretch your body?

Need some milk or bread and realize that the local service station is within walking distance?

Human beings are designed to walk. It is an incredibly efficient way to get around and it's very good for us. the great thing about walking as a form of exercise is that it's available to everyone and you don't even have to change your clothes to do it. If you stay at home during the day you can walk for exercise or walk the dog. Even pushing the shopping around the supermarket can give you some exercise if you do it with intention!

If you are at work then your lunch hour is the perfect time to walk. You can also use the stairs instead of the lift to get that little extra exercise out of your day. Instead of sitting in the coffee shop or food hall at lunchtime, grab something to take to the park or even to a more scenic street location where you can eat your food, watch the world go by, interact with the people around you and make sure it's a good 10-minute walk from your workplace. That's 20 minutes walking every day and it can be a different route anytime you like. You may find some previously undiscovered places to enjoy your lunch and get some well deserved exercise in the process.

Of course walking isn't the only form of exercise open to us but it is the cheapest, most accessible for the average person and can be done when the inspiration strikes. I just looked up "walking for exercise" in an online encyclopedia and it gives a lot of interesting options for people to undertake. One of them is what they termed Mall Walking. Go early before work and really stretch those paces out through those long, long corridors. I've found that most malls offer some kind of opportunity for a reasonably paced walk through their halls although Sale Day shopping crowds can spoil it so choose your time wisely.

Walk with your children after school and just see how they begin talking to you as you walk along, such a change from the usually 'nothing much happened at school today" response you may usually get. There is something about the act of walking that forms a bond between the participants, a level field in which to share more than the act of walking. The dog loves it and so will your children and they won't even realize they are getting some exercise too.

Of course you can go the gym but that entails a car trip usually, specific clothing and well

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