A daily routine of moderately-paced walking can help you control your weight, lower cholesterol, strengthen your heart, and reduce the likelihood of serious health problems down the road. It's important to know your own starting point before you set your own personal Walktoberfest walking goals. This knowledge will help you create personalized walking goals during the six weeks of Walktoberfest that are right for you. Here is how:
First: Choose your mode of measurement. Either distance covered by walking, or time spent walking, or number of steps taken walking.
Second: Establish a baseline. Spend 2 or 3 days prior to the start of Walktoberfest recording the average time, or distance, or steps you walk in a given day.
Third: Set a walking goal you want to achieve by the end of six weeks. Examples of this would be "Walk for 60 minutes at least 5 days per week", "Walk 8,000 steps a day", or "Walk 35 miles per week".
Fourth: Set weekly goals and record them in the provided Walktoberfest log. A good rule of thumb for setting walking goals: Using your baseline, increase you goal each week by either 500 steps or 5 minutes or ¼ of a mile. It is perfectly fine to have the same goal two weeks in a row if you had difficulty achieving the set goal during the first week.
The best way to achieve a goal is to set a S.M.A.R.T goal
Specific-know what you have to do daily to reach your goal
Measurable-how will you know how many steps you take or how long or how far you walk?
Achievable-it's your goal, so you have to be able to achieve it
Realistic-your goal should make you push yourself, but it should also be attainable
Time frame-have a start and an end date decided, in this case it is 6 week
SMART example: For week one I will walk around campus for 15 minutes by 10:30am every weekday at work and then record it in my walking log as soon as I get back to the office.
Not so SMART example: I will walk more this week than last week.