Incorporating Walking into Everyday Life

Journal Entry 3/20/10: Weight = 170.4 lbs.; Coinage = $.50, 10 pennies, 4 dimes; Glass bottles = 17; Ground Scores = 8.

Journal Entry 3/21/10: Weight = 171.4 lbs; Coinage = $4.04, 99 pennies, 10 nickels, 8 dimes, 7 quarters; ( one super find, 2 quarters, 1 nickel, 2 pennies in a curb scatter); Glass bottles = 16; Ground scores = 5.

Journal Entry 3/22/10: Weight = 172.6 lbs; Coinage = $ 1.59, 39 pennies, 2 nickels, 6 dimes, 2 quarters; Glass bottles = 4; Ground Scores = 6.

Journal Entry 3/23/10: Weight = 171.8 lbs; Coinage = $1.25, 50 pennies, 2 nickels, 4 dimes, 1 quarter; Glass bottles = 19; Best coinage find = a quadfecta on a long range errand run, a curb dime at the doctors park, a nickel find in the candy machine return at the hospital, a quarter find at the service station’s air station, and two pennies at the hardware parking lot. Money is everywhere looks if one looks carefully

Feature Entry: Incorporating Walking into Everyday Life

The 3/23/10 journal entry that describes how the MoneyWalker found $.42 on one run of daily chores led me to consider how to find natural and interesting ways to increase the number of steps taken each day. My goal is take 12,000 steps daily, the number derived by exercise physiologists as the amount required to keep weight at or near the recommended Body Mass Index.

The MoneyWalker follows three strategies to reach the 12,000 step goal—daily 90 minute fitness walk, residual green walks that involve walking to complete chores near my home in Mid City New Orleans, and Parking-lot walks (instead of parking as close to the destination as possible, I park as far from the desitnation as possible) when a destination is beyond the logic of a residual walk. The motivation for incorporating this much walking into my everyday lifestyle is multifaceted. Two important hinges drive the behaviors. First, is the desire to stay physically fit and avoid weight gain. These are both intrinsic motives and lack the power to sustain the 12,000 step behavior. The second hinge is extrinsic and involves a “bizarre” habit of searching for money while performing the exercise. Past blogs have defined how the brain’s pleasure center, the ventral striatum, seems to be hardwired to demonstrate pleasure when a lost coin or paper currency is found. Moreover, the pleasure derived from finding coins is highly reinforcing. The link to walking is obvious, the more you walk, the more money you find.

But is there that much money out there to be found? One estimate is that people in the U.S. lose $300,000 every day. Finding money is a learned skill. When the MoneyWalker started, his average was about .25 cents for a one hour walk. Now his daily walk, although now a 90 minute walk, yields more than $1.50 a walk.

Later we will reinforce many other benefits from incorporating walking into your everyday life including fitness, weight management, prevention of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease, and more personal joy and tranquility. Also, we will more fully discuss specific ways that each of us can find the time and the will to complete the walks.

MoneyWalker