Methods of Providing Motivation to Sustain the Daily Habit of Walking

Journal Entry 1/16/10: Weight = 172.4; Coinage = $2.05 (curb coins = $1.04, canister coins = $1.01) pennies = 75, nickels = 7, dimes = 7, quarters = 1; Glass bottles = 16; Ground scores = 6.

Journal Entry 1/17/10: Weight = 172.0; Coinage = $.51, 31 pennies, 4 nickels; Glass bottles = 5; Ground score = 3.

Feature Entry: Methods of Providing Motivation to Sustain the Daily Habit of Walking

In the last post, in a tone reeking of esoteric overstatement, we featured Charles Baudelaire and his notion of flâneur—that of "a person who walks the city in order to experience it”—as one of the many reasons people site to explain their motivation for taking a walk. Google’s Blogspot product that allows individuals to easily, inexpensively, and quickly create their own personal blog request that bloggers create a “personal profile.” One of their profile questions involves learning the bloggers favorite hobbies. The number one hobby response is walking. But how many of these will actually systematically walk several days a week over the year? Probably as many that will sustain their blog throughout the year, less than 5%.

Back to the flâneu, the MoneyWalker is infatuated with the concept—walking an area to experience it. The flâneu is an elegant source of motivation to sustain interest in walking. Walking to experience the serenity of nature, the constitutional walk for good health, walking to give shape to one’s emotions, and utility walking for daily needs such as groceries have all been cited as motivational reasons used to sustain the habit of daily walking.

As for the flâneu, the MoneyWalker uses it on vacation, while visiting strange or different places, or as a change of pace for walking in his own neighborhood. But he doesn’t believe that flâneu can provide permanent motivation to sustain the habit of walking for fitness and weight management. Lost coins are recurring and in constant state of replenishment, the neighborhood is irrelevant. But what happens to a flâneu walk when the novelty of the neighborhood passes? For the MoneyWalker, the motivation also passes.

There is another motive for walking that may rival the motive of finding money as a method to sustain the regular habit of walking for exercise. In today’s Parade Magazine, dog walking was compared to gym membership and the amount of exercise each type of participant obtained weekly over a sustained period. Dog walking won hands down. Dog walkers burn much more calories week by week and month by month when compared to people that buy and utilize gym memberships.

Let’s see, picking up dog poop or sorting through the gunk found in carwash vacuum canisters—tough call! But not for me, I'm a MoneyWalker.

MoneyWalker