For the purpose of increasing your momentum, a designated walk is extremely important. However, you are accumulating steps throughout your day that you are not claiming. Do not take your activity for granted. There are two ways to account for the distance you are walking:

1) You count by miles; such as "I walked 2 miles today"

2) and, you count by steps using a pedometer.

Either way is acceptable; however, if you are counting my miles, you are losing a lot of steps you take for granted. I a, talking about when you are going up and down the aisles at a grocery store; when you are cleaning your house; when you do laundry; when you are mowing your yard; when you are cleaning your garage and car; when you are walking up and down stairs; when you walk in your office; when you walk to "catch" lunch with friends when you go shopping at the mall; and. so forth.

It is advisable to purchase a pedometer and put it on as soon as you get dressed in the morning and do not take it off until you lay your head down at night to sleep. In case you are wondering why this is important do this experiment: Do not wear a pedometer for one day and guess how far you walked and then the next day put the pedometer on and at the end of the day write down the number of steps you claim for the day. Were you close in your guessing? It is documentation on your progress in gaining more steps each day that will increase your strength and endurance.

One of the Christmas presents you may want to consider is to purchase a pedometer for everyone in your family so they can track their individual steps and evaluate if someone in your family needs extra encouragement to increase their steps and have a healthier body. It does not matter how you keep track by mileage or by steps; the important issue is keep walking toward a better lifestyle with everyone in your family.