Don’t park as close as you can to an entrance, park far away. You will naturally walk more.

Don’t park as close as you can to an entrance, park far away. You will naturally walk more.

Long ago I heard the suggestion to park far away from entrances and I rolled my eyes at it. How much of a difference could it really make? As I was thinking of how to create my Exercise Safe Zone, I decided to try parking far away from entrances. It really works! Now it’s one of my favorite strategies because it’s so simple, easy, effective, and there are so many opportunities to use it. Think of all the times you park your car and enter a building. That’s a lot of opportunities.

Let’s run some numbers on this strategy. When I park at work, for example, I park far enough away that I add a total of 400 additional steps (200 steps each way) to my daily total. Now, let’s say I park at five different places during the day and each time I find 400 additional steps. Over a day that’s 2000 extra steps! That’s an extra mile of walking from just this one simple strategy.