How Many KMs Should You Walk A Day: Achieve Your Daily Steps Goal with the Perfect KM Walked Per Day!

The Benefits of Walking Daily

A simple 30-minute daily walk is a great form of exercise. It doesn’t matter where or when you do it, it’s completely free and beneficial for your health. Just half an hour a day can:

lower the risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and some cancers
increase heart and lung fitness
strengthen bones and improve balance
reduce excess body fat
increase muscle strength and endurance
reduce anxiety and depression
improve your mood.

In this article, we’ll talk about everything you need to do to establish a walking routine so that you can enjoy all those benefits to your health.

Setting Your Walking Goal

When you’re planning your routine, set yourself achievable goals that gradually increase the intensity and distance of your walks. This will help you stay motivated and increase the benefits you gain. Here are some things that you may find helpful to take into account when you’re formulating your goals:

Age – generally, younger adults can cover longer distances while older adults and people with limited mobility might prefer shorter walks.
Fitness level – if you’re physically fit, you can walk further faster. People with lower fitness levels should start with shorter distances and build up gradually.
Health – the less able and people with chronic conditions such as arthritis and heart disease may have a decreased walking capacity.

Walking is a low-to-moderate intensity exercise that is generally safe. However, it’s always worth speaking to your doctor before starting any new exercise program, particularly if you are aged over 40 years, are living at an unhealthy weight or haven’t exercised for a long time. Your GP will be able to give you informed, personalised advice on how far you should walk each day.

Setting goals can help you integrate a walking program into your lifestyle. It often helps to start small. Making gradual improvements can be more effective than attempting to make big, dramatic changes. For example, if you haven’t done much walking for a while, an initial target of 15 minutes on most days of the week is more sustainable than trying to power-walk for an hour each day.

A good goal-setting framework is the SMART formula:

Specific – goals should be clear and well defined.
Measurable – they should include a way of tracking progress.
Achievable – realistic goals help you avoid setting yourself up for failure.
Relevant – goals should be relevant to what you want to achieve.
Time bound – goals should have a clearly defined timeline, to help with motivation.

A SMART goal for establishing a walking routine might be:

Specific: I will walk for 25 minutes on five days a week.
Measurable: I will time my walks with the stopwatch on my phone.
Achievable: I currently walk for 20 minutes most days, so increasing this to 25 minutes is realistic.
Relevant: I want to improve my health, and regular walking can help me to do this.
Time-bound: I will achieve my goal within the next month.

To get the health benefits of walking, aim to be able to walk briskly for at least 30 minutes every day. ‘Briskly’ means going at a pace where you can still talk but would feel uncomfortable trying to hold a conversation.

Considerations for Beginners

Setting realistic goals can also prevent injury and burnout, especially if you haven’t followed a structured walking routine before. Other tips for beginners include:

Start gently – begin with walks of around 5 to 10 minutes at a steady pace. You can gradually build up your time, distance and speed.
Warm up and cool down – start each walk at a slow and easy pace to give your muscles time to warm up, and then increase the speed. Afterwards, cool down by going back to a gentle pace for a while.
Wear supportive shoes and comfortable socks.
Hydration – drink plenty of fluids before, during and after your walk, especially in hot weather.

Optimising Your Walking Route

Optimising your walking route involves balancing enjoyment with making progress towards your goal.

Obviously, safety is a major consideration, so select areas that are well lit and stick to pedestrian paths. Adding a bit of variety and some challenges can keep things interesting and enhance your fitness gains. For example:

Don’t stick to the same route every day. Explore different locations and think about alternating natural settings such as parks and beaches with urban areas.
Try walking at different times of the day. A morning walk can boost your mood and energy levels, and evening walks can help you unwind.
Include inclines and hills. Walking uphill engages different muscles, burns more calories and strengthens bones.
Recruit a walking buddy. Having some company – a friend or a pet dog – can make your walk more fun.

Monitoring Your Progress

Monitoring your progress towards your goal can be helpful and motivational. Seeing positive changes can reinforce your commitment. If you encounter setbacks or areas that need improvement, tracking helps you to make adjustments and stay on course.

By recording data such as details of your walk, body measurements and performance, you gain insights which you can use to inform your decisions and optimise your routine. There is a huge range of fitness tech available to help with this, including smartwatches and phone apps.

Keeping a journal can be useful for tracking your progress and staying motivated. There are apps and pen-and-paper journals available. The type of data you might record are the duration and intensity of your walks and your feelings about your progress.

Listen to Your Body

As we mentioned earlier, walking is low risk. But of course, it always pays to take notice of the signals your body gives you while you’re doing any form of exercise. It’s normal to feel some muscle fatigue while walking, but sharp pain or discomfort can be a warning sign of a serious problem. If you experience any of the following, stop exercising and seek medical help or advice as soon as possible:

Chest pain or discomfort
Suddenly feeling excessively breathless
Feeling dizzy, faint or lightheaded
Palpitations.

Staying Motivated

Staying motivated to exercise can be hard at times, but there are effective strategies to help you maintain your walking routine.

Having support systems and ‘accountability partners’ (people who support another person to maintain progress towards a goal) can play a significant motivational role.

Another way to maintain motivation is to stay aware of your original reasons for improving your fitness. These might include wanting to be healthier for longer or to enhance your quality of life.

If you do experience a dip in motivation, don’t beat yourself up. Remember that going through negative phases is part of being human. Instead, just take the attitude that you can always start again.

Being kind to yourself is far more likely to help you achieve your goal than thinking negatively about yourself.

Enjoy the Journey

Walking is an excellent addition to your daily routine. It helps you maintain or lose weight, reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease, boost your mood and the immune system and promotes blood glucose control. You can also search for a walking group in your local area with Heart Foundation Walking.

You can find out much more about exercise – and all other aspects of a healthy lifestyle – with the Life! program.

**How the Life! program can help you**

Life! is a free healthy lifestyle program that helps you improve your eating habits, increase your physical activity and manage stress. The program is for people who are at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

Life! is run by experienced health professionals, including dietitians and exercise physiologists, who guide and support you to make healthy lifestyle changes.

The program includes 7 sessions delivered over a 12-month period. You can choose from a group course or our telephone health coaching service. Learn more about the Life! program.