WHAT a lovely idea Walk to School Month is! Have you taken the plunge and ditched the car for the morning run? If not, then I’d like to convince you to walk to school, mainly because it can make such a huge difference to your kids’ health as well as yours; and it really is the easiest form of exercise!
There are so many great benefits to walking – in fact it has been described as the most perfect form of exercise; and adults should be doing around 30 minutes of it a day and children 60 minutes, however only a third of people in Britain achieve this.
For such an easy exercise the benefits of walking are incredible; just adding in a bit of brisk walking to your daily routine will improve your heart, lungs and blood pressure; and that’s not all – it also reduces the risks of certain cancers and type 2 Diabetes.
Those are just some of the benefits of a walk to school, you’ll also find it’s a great way of toning your body, that is keeps your stress levels down and improves your sleep; all that from a type of exercise which is almost effortless!
You may find the added benefit of a walk to school would be a release from all that traffic stress, or the task of finding a parking space outside the school gates.
I often hear people say that they can’t walk to school because it is too far from the home, and of course for some people this is very true, so I have a little suggestion for you:
Park and Stride!
Yes, all you need to do is park a good distance away so that you’re still making the most of the morning run and getting a bit of exercise out of it for you and the kids.
One of our lovely Slimpodders, Jackie, is a walking convert, since getting started on her Fitpod she hasn’t stopped, getting involved in walking challenges, taking the dog out for long strolls and most importantly that daily walk to school.
Here’s what she said: “I’m amazed at the difference in myself. I was a real couch potato, any excuse not to walk, even to walk the dog. As soon as I started listening it made me walk more. The best part of it is that I loved it. I walked with my head held high and a smile on my face.”
So join Jackie, and the millions of others who walk to school each day, and start to see a huge difference in your children’s and your own health; make tomorrow’s school run the start of something big and make a change to your families well-being!
