A Couch Potato’s Guide to Exercise: 7 Steps to Change Your Life

No need to call the psychic hotline—couch potatoes face a pretty dreary future. If you’re a confirmed couch potato you know what that means. You’re unfit. You’re flabby. You don’t feel so great, and it is harder and harder to move around and do the basic things. Suddenly, you’re watching those commercials on TV advertising scooters so you don’t have to get up at all. You can become a former couch potato. Not only can you get up and get fit, you can become an athlete. Now I am not saying you’ll become a prize-winning athlete, but you can totally transform yourself. And here is the short version of the couch potato’s guide to exercise.

Jo Ann LeQuang runs the site EnduranceWalker.com that can help couch potatoes become former-couch-potatoes.

Keep at it

Keep at it. It takes several weeks, but pretty soon you will be walking faster and longer. You will lose weight. You will realize that there is a life you don’t have view from a screen. Keep ramping up your time. Eventually, when your long walk builds to 2 hours, make your short walks 45 minutes. When your long walk hits 3 hours, make your short walks 60 minutes. Then you can stay there … or start to train for a marathon! Yes, you can walk a marathon. More and more marathons are opening up for endurance walkers who can do the 26.2 miles. A really fast walker may actually complete a marathon faster than a slow runner. It takes about 6 months to a year for a total couch potato to train for a marathon, but it can be done!