Tips for Starting a Walking Routine

With many miles of recreation paths and low-traffic dirt roads—and lots of beautiful scenery—Vermont is a haven for walking. No matter where you live in the state, it’s easy to find great places to go for walks.

Walking is a healthy activity that most people can do at little to no cost. Taking a daily walk can reduce the risk of heart disease, lower blood pressure, help manage diabetes, reduce arthritis pain and stiffness, lower stress and anxiety, and improve sleep.

However, making walking a consistent daily routine can be difficult. Busy schedules, work or family obligations, and lack of motivation are some of the things that can keep people from walking every day. To help you reap the health benefits of walking, we share these tips for starting and maintaining a daily walking routine.

Getting Started

If you don’t already take a daily walk, here are some things you can do to get started.

• Invest in good-fitting walking shoes. If your feet become sore because your shoes are too tight or not supportive enough, it will discourage you from walking every day. Visit a local shoe store with a staff that can measure your feet and help with selecting a proper fitting pair of shoes.
• Carry fluids to stay hydrated. Even though walking is gentle exercise, it can still dehydrate you, especially in the warmer months. Having a way to carry fluids with you while you walk, such as a water bottle hanging from your belt, will help you to stay hydrated. You’ll want to walk farther if you are well-hydrated. Read our blog article on staying hydrated for tips.
• Protect yourself from the sun. If you are out walking during the daytime hours, protect yourself from the sun by wearing sunscreen, a hat, and sunglasses. Our blog articles on choosing and applying sunscreen and selecting sunglasses can help you be prepared.
• Be visible to stay safe. If you are walking where there is traffic, wear bright-colored clothing and reflective gear, especially at night or when the light is low, such as early morning or twilight. Also remember to walk on the left side of the road so that you are facing oncoming traffic.  

Walking Tips

• Start slowly and build gradually. If you haven’t been an active walker, it’s best to start by taking short, easy walks (such as 10 minutes on flat terrain) and then gradually make your walks longer and more difficult, like including a hill on your route.
• Carve out a set time in your schedule. It helps to set aside a dedicated time in your daily schedule for walking, such as first thing in the morning or after you finish work for the day.
• Set realistic goals. It’s better to set goals you can achieve than to be overly ambitious and get discouraged by failure. You can have both an initial goal and a long-term goal that you’re working towards. For example, your initial goal may be to walk for 15 minutes five days a week, and your long-term goal could be to walk 30 minutes every day.
• Be ready to make adjustments. If something comes up that keeps you from completing your daily walk, find an alternative way to incorporate walking into your day, such as taking a series of shorter walks at lunch and during breaks in your schedule. Likewise, if bad weather prevents you from walking outdoors, have a fallback plan for getting your walking in, such as spending time on a treadmill or going to a local mall to walk.
• Plan different routes. Seek out different walking routes to keep your daily walk from becoming boring. To make it even more interesting, create routes with various lengths and settings. For example, one day you could walk on a bike path that runs along a river, and the next day take a dirt road loop that includes a hilltop vista.

Remaining Motivated

Once you’ve started a walking program, it’s important to stick with it. Here’s how some Blue Cross VT employees motivate themselves to walk daily.

• Find ways to hold yourself accountable. “I needed something concrete to hold me accountable to ensure my walking was a priority and not something I dismissed because I was too busy, not in the mood, or it was too cold,” says Teresa Anderson, director of brand and engagement strategies. “Helping my neighbors walk their dogs and volunteering with Aging in Place with Pets to walk dogs for individuals who have physical limitations is what motivated me and has kept me walking, even in single-digit temperatures,” she says.
• Combine walking with another activity. “I often layer walking together with another activity that would normally be sedentary,” says Andrew Garland, vice president for client relations and external affairs. “For example, I love to read, but with an audio book, I can combine reading with walking. I also listen to baseball games on the radio when I walk in the summer, and I catch up on podcasts on the treadmill in the winter.”
• Use walking to decompress. “I love tuning in to the present moment when out for a walk, using your sensory system to tune in to the landscape, smell the spring air, and listen to the birds and sounds around you,” says Nicole Williams, wellness program consultant. “This can be a really effective way to decompress after a stressful day or to pause the noise of all the tasks and stressors that may be occurring in that moment.”
• Learn about the landscape. Walking helps Andrew get to know an area. “When I drive through or by a neighborhood or a park, I only get a fleeting sense of it. But when I walk, I slow down and start to notice things: how people have designed their homes and yards, the plants and trees in a neighborhood, the birds that live there,” he says. “Our state is really beautiful and I feel like I experience it more fully when I’m walking around.”

Finding Places to Walk

We hope these tips will help you start your own daily walking routine and explore your neighborhood or community. If you’d like to find additional places to walk in Vermont, check out the walking trails listed on TrailLink and Trail Finder.