How to exercise on a budget: what about walking?

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How DO you exercise on a budget?

There are so many pressures to spend your hard-earned money on, well, ummmm ….. basically everything! Including exercise. If you tune into the world around you or if you’re easily hooked into comparing yourself to others, you’ll probably believe that you HAVE to pay for a gym membership, you HAVE to buy fancy equipment to get fit, and that you HAVE to have the latest super-tech clothes if you intend to work up a sweat (which kind of goes along with exercise!).

Well I’m telling you that all these have-to’s are simply not true. Sure, some of those fancy clothes or equipment can enhance your exercise, but for aeons humans have coped quite well with little or no special exercise equipment. I mean, exercise is basically improving your strength and aerobic health through activity that puts a load on your body. It doesn’t HAVE to cost anything, and crying poor is never a reason to stay on the sofa.

Back in my day …..

Ask your grandparents or great grandparents (if they’re still around) and they’ll tellfirewood you what it was like back in their day. I bet they’d say no one needed any gyms or fancy schmancy pants in the olden days: exercise consisted of a hard day’s work out on the farm fixing fences, collecting and chopping wood for the kitchen fire, walking to the shop and doing the laundry in a boiler!

You don’t need a big budget!

Yes, times have changed and it’s a different world we live in, but there are some things that have stayed the same. To exercise on a budget, you simply get back to the basics – focus on your daily dose of physical activity instead of the frills-and-all approach that can suck you in. Get yourself a decent pair of shoes, pull on some comfy clothes and a hat. Slap on some sunscreen. Grab a bottle of water. And you’re all good to go walking, one of the best and most accessible types of exercise we have.

Why is walking ideal? Oh my goodness, let me count the ways!

  1. You can set your own pace
  2. It’s convenient – slip on your shoes and get out the door no matter where walking in bootsyou live or work or travel
  3. You can do it alone or in a group
  4. You’ve probably already got everything you need to go walking
  5. If you don’t have everything, you still don’t HAVE to spend a lot to get started
  6. No special equipment needed
  7. It’s free in general – to tell you the truth, there are a few places I’ve been to that charge a small fee such as a day entry fee to some National Parks or car parking fees in busy tourist or urban spaces, but that’s the exception not the rule. Walking is one of the cheapest ways to exercise on a budget.

Walking ….. “BORING!”

Walking is boring, you say? Well, anything’s boring if you repeatedly do the same thing day after day, in the same place, and in the same way.

Never be bored again!

Here are some ideas to vary up your workout so you’ll never be bored again, even if you need to exercise on a budget (and that’s most of us)!

  1. Mix it up – walk in different placeswalking on the beach
  2. Choose different length walks – some days go long, and other days go short
  3. Go solo, or meet up with a buddy
  4. Join a walking group
  5. Have a go at Park Run
  6. Change up which direction you go on your usual route
  7. Challenge yourself to an uphill climb
  8. Relax with a downhill walk
  9. See the city sights on an urban walk
  10. Climb those stairs – repeatedly!
  11. Go exploring on a water walk – river, dam, ocean
  12. Treat yourself to a bushwalk – check out National Parks, State Forests, reserves
  13. Wander along the beach, feel the sand between your toes
  14. Walk with a purpose: walk to work, school, a friend’s place, bus or train station, shops
  15. Swap your usual routine and enjoy the sights at a different time of day
  16. Grab a map and compass and give orienteering a go
  17. Use a navigation app or device to pre-plan your walk – you can even be really creative by designing a funky picture that overlays the streets and then follow that on your walk
  18. Pace the paddock or local park
  19. Walk with a backpack for added load, or take some light hand weights
  20. Walking meetings are all the rage!
  21. Have a walking break at lunch time or after work to wind down and de-stress
  22. Leave your car a few kilometres from work or the train / bus station and walk the rest of the way
  23. Earn as you walk – deliver newspapers or pamphlets house-to-house
  24. Go window shopping
  25. Take your kids for a walk after school while everyone chats about their day

Walking can be your go-to exercise too!

Walking has always been my go-to exercise because I can do it almost anywhere, any time, with little equipment, no expense, and all the benefits of feeling great and knowing I’m giving my future health an awesome boost! And you can too! Start with any of the ideas above and let me know how you go, or share your other ideas with me on how to exercise on a budget. 

Daisy Spoke

Discovering mountain biking as life’s ultimate parallel universe in her middle age, Kathryn Walton shares information and reflections in ‘Daisy Spoke’ that inform, inspire and empower women to a healthy and active lifestyle.

Planning My Time for a Highly Successful Day

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Achieving goals means doing the work that brings success. This includes getting yourself organised on a daily basis by planning your time. When you consciously and intentionally choose how and where you spend your time, you minimise stress that otherwise builds up when you have to rush to get things done at the last minute. To help you plan your time for a highly successful day, I’ve created a beautiful daily planner that you can download and print from my website. And it’s free! Read on for some tips on how to use the planner to make the best investment of your time each day.

Photo of Time Planner
Click on the image to go to my website where you can download and print a PDF of my time planner

Plan Your Time for a Highly Successful Day

Your planner has been designed to be quick and easy to use. When you invest a couple of minutes each day into planning how you choose to spend your time, the payoffs can be enormous! A little bit of organisation goes a long way. Here are a few tips to get you started with your planner. 

Choose an attitude to take you through the day

It’s all well and good that you make an action plan, but it’s even more important to choose an attitude for the day. Visualise yourself selecting and clothing yourself in an attitude each morning, just as you choose which clothes to wear. Writing your attitude down on your planner, right at the very top, will keep it present in all that you do. Here are some examples of attitudes that you might like to choose from (but really, the sky is the limit with choice here!)

  • relaxedPatiently persist!
  • focused
  • intentional
  • mindful
  • gentle
  • assertive / firm
  • warrior
  • action-oriented
  • efficient
  • patient 

Choose a self-care focus for the day

Self-care makes you more resilient and gives you strength. But it can easily get tossed to the side when you’re busy. Don’t be a self-sacrificing martyr – the world needs you to stay strong – so make sure your self-care stays high on your list of priorities. Some examples of self-care that you can incorporate into your day include:

  • go to bed at …….. (write down the time you intend to go to bed)Say no so I can say yes
  • take my lunch break away from my work
  • say ‘no’ more often
  • go for a walk
  • chat with a friend
  • take the time to cook a nutritious meal
  • meditate
  • read a book for ½ hour

Choose 2 – 3 goals for the day

Don’t be overwhelmed by your to-do list. Be realistic. Choose just 2 or 3 tasks to prioritise for each day. When you achieve your short list of objectives, you’ll feel a sense of accomplishment and motivation. And that’s much better than feeling overwhelmed at the enormity of everything on your ever-expanding to-do list that you haven’t accomplished in the day. Some days my short list of goals or priorities looks like this:

1. go for a walkThe challenge with time management is to manage ourselves

2. be on time for school pick-up

3. have dinner ready by 7pm

Other days I choose goals that require more energy and focus, such as:

1. write and publish a blog post

2. update clinical records

3. research and write new privacy policy

Break the day up into sections

I often refer to this technique as “chunking it down”. When you break the day up intoBreak it down into pieces chunks, you’re better able to focus on that one period of time. You work more efficiently and effectively, gain a sense of achievement throughout the day, and feel less overwhelmed by the enormity of what’s on your plate. This type of scheduling can be applied to many different situations including school assignments, boring tasks, housework, meetings and so on. On your planner you can break up the activities you want (or need) to focus on in the morning, afternoon and evening. Here’s an example of what my planner sometimes looks like:

Activities for This Morning
  • go for walk
  • pay the bills online
  • clinical and administration tasks
Activities for This Afternoon
  • watch a training video
  • get the groceries while my son is at his speech lesson
Activities for This Evening
  • reheat leftovers for dinner
  • join my online video mentoring group

Keep a list of to-do’s to carry over to another day

At the bottom of your planner there is space for you to keep a list of tasks, activities andMake a list! other to-do’s that weren’t on your priority list for today. Having them handy here means that if your day has gone smoothly and you have time and energy up your sleeve, you can easily run your eye down this list and select additional tasks to work on. Or, perhaps things haven’t worked out today as expected and you need to reorganise your priorities. This space also enables you to make a record of tasks as you think of them so they don’t get lost in your hazy busy brain! My ‘to-do list for another day’ is quite extensive. I use it like a bank of tasks that I can select my priority goals from each day, and then cross them out as I achieve them!

So there you have it! A system to plan your time for a highly successful day. And a reminder to be gentle with yourself when it doesn’t all go to plan. This system is simply a plan – a flexible tool to guide your daily choices and actions. Experiment with the plan to see what works best for you.

Take a Minute for Your Mind

Take a Minute for Your Mind LogoHAVE YOU SIGNED UP FOR MY FREE 7 DAY CHALLENGE “TAKE A MINUTE FOR YOUR MIND”? Available for a limited time only! For more information and to register, go to the OFFERS tab on my website!

 

 

Discovering mountain biking as life’s ultimate parallel universe in her middle age, Daisy Spoke aka Kathryn Walton logoKathryn Walton shares information and reflections in Daisy Spoke that connect, inspire and self-empower women to make healthy choices for themselves. She integrates her love of physical exercise, family, nature, gardening and creative arts with her professional background in mental health social work to facilitate change with individuals, groups and communities of women who are committed to living life to the full. 

Metamorphosis: change is on the way!

Many animals and plants go through periods of rapid and remarkable change: caterpillars morph into butterflies, stone-like seeds generate lush green shoots.

There are infinite examples of other animal and plant changes that are no less remarkable, but perhaps more gradual over time, so the effect may not be as dramatic to the eye: kittens grow into adult cats, seedlings grow into trees.

The inner world of the human is also subject to transformation over time. This is a more abstract concept, but very real and can have a profound impact on the individual and others around them.

Organisations also experience change. We often associate this with unwelcome change such as restructures and redundancies.

Being a small business owner in a regional town for over 12 years, I’ve experienced the effect of many changes in our society including drought, flood, the global financial crisis, government policy changes and a decline in my local economy. I have adapted my business routines, structures, services and systems to meet the changing needs of my community and family.

And NOW I am stepping forward to initiate a NEW and exciting CHANGE! ….. A TRANSFORMATION…… A METAMORPHOSIS. I’m incredibly excited about this change! It’s the next step on my journey of MAKING A DIFFERENCE to my world and making a difference to the lives of many individuals.

 

I’ll shortly be announcing the LAUNCH of my NEW WEBSITE and rolling out my transformational NEW OFFERS including online courses, workshop packages, speaking services and FREE downloads! You’ll have access to the best current evidence-based information about health and wellbeing. You’ll be offered opportunities to be INSPIRED and EMPOWERED on your own wellness journey, as well as events and resources to support YOU as you support OTHERS in your work environment and personal life.

STAY TUNED for all the details as 2017 draws to a close, and JOIN WITH ME as the new year UNFOLDS offering us the next part of our journey in life.

(And remember! You can follow me on Facebook and Instagram too!)

Discovering mountain biking as life’s ultimate parallel universe in her middle age, Kathryn Walton shares information and reflections in Daisy Spoke that connect, inspire and self-empower women to make healthy choices for themselves.

Thinking About Thinking: the barbed nature of thoughts

Thinking about thinking is pretty hard work. It’s a fairly abstract concept so I find it helpful to use imagery and metaphors to grasp some of the concepts that are so important to a healthy mind and body.

Thoughts are a little bit like a fish hook with barbs on it. We can very easily get hooked by our thoughts, reeled in and immersed in an ever-expanding fantasy that leaves us feeling upset, excited, worried, distressed or something else. The hooking nature of thought is very powerful.

When our mind throws out a line with a barbed hook at the end, that’s our thought, we often don’t even realise that we’ve grabbed hold of it. We can become firmly attached to it and we can have difficulty letting it go. We can find ourselves stuck, squirming and wriggling with the discomfort just as a fish does as it’s reeled in from the water.

But how do we stop ourselves getting hooked in the first place? And if we do get hooked, how can we free ourselves from those thoughts that leave us feeling really uncomfortable? How do we know which thoughts to let go of, and which ones to hold onto?

Daily practice of simply noticing your thoughts as they arise during an activity helps to train your brain to notice thoughts arising at other times, and to notice that they are simply thoughts or mental events. If you find the fish hook imagery useful, you can notice the hooks (or thoughts) being cast out, and you can notice which hooks (or thoughts) you cling on to.

When you notice that you’ve been hooked into a story of your mind that’s unhelpful and is keeping you stuck and struggling, picture yourself carefully prising the thought or the hook away. As you gently and carefully extract yourself from the barbs, perceiving the thought as a small but powerful hook that is separate to you, you’ll be able to lovingly let go of it, thank it for its care and concern in your life, and set yourself free.

Discovering mountain biking as life’s ultimate parallel universe in her middle age, Kathryn Walton shares information and reflections in Daisy Spoke that connect, inspire and self-empower women to make healthy choices for themselves.