In this video, Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal, Nourish, Grow, leads Day 8 of a 30‑day Healthy Habits Challenge by assigning participants a 15‑minute walk. She explains that the walk does not need to be fast or at a specific pace, but should ideally be outdoors to reap benefits such as fresh air, sunlight for circadian rhythm regulation, mood improvement, and cardiovascular support. McColgan offers practical safety and accessibility tips for different climates, terrains, and neighborhoods—bundling up in cold weather, walking earlier in heat, using a treadmill or indoor space when conditions are unsafe, walking against traffic when sidewalks are absent, and driving to a park if local safety is a concern. She emphasizes walking’s universal accessibility, noting that even deconditioned or overweight individuals can incorporate short “walking snacks.” The video also delves into the psychology of habit formation, contrasting fleeting motivation with lasting discipline. McColgan shares a personal “discipline trick”: put on workout clothes and commit to just five minutes, using the act of getting out the door as the hardest part, after which consistency follows. She encourages listeners to honor their bodies when needed but to prioritize the habit, aiming for a modest increase in outdoor movement without altering the overall 10‑minute daily movement goal of the challenge. The tone is supportive, instructional, and empathetic, concluding with a hopeful invitation to enjoy the walk regardless of scenery.
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Hey everyone. I'm Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal, Nourish, Grow, and welcome to day 8 of the 30-day Healthy Habits Challenge. Today's challenge is going to be something you've already been doing movement every day as part of the challenge, but today I'm going to task you with taking a 15-minute walk. There's a specific reason that we wanna do a walk, so it doesn't have to be any fast kind of walk. It doesn't have to be a specific pace, but ideally I would like for you to walk outside, and there's a good reason for that. It is really a healthy and important thing to connect with nature on a daily basis. And I realize, you know, depending on what part of the country you live in right now, as I'm recording this, it is the end of December. And so it was about 25 degrees today here in the Midwest. And I realize it might not seem like the most pleasant thing to do, but if it's cold, bundle up, get outside. If it's too warm where you are, go earlier in the day where it's cooler, obviously be safe. If there's ice, if there's excessive amount of heat, maybe, you know, walk inside on the treadmill instead. And if, if you can't walk outside for whatever reason and you don't have a treadmill and you can't go to the gym, then you're just going to do whatever the movement you've been doing. So you're still going to keep your habit of daily movement, but the walk outside is so great because you'll get some fresh air. You'll get sunshine. Getting real sunshine on your eyeballs outside is so important for your circadian rhythm. It allows you to connect with nature. Like I said, so just observing The trees, I'm looking out the trees outside my window right now. None of them have any leaves, but just noticing the sights, being outside, breathing the fresh air. It is so wonderful to actually get outside and get outta your office. Now, for most of us, walking is pretty accessible. It's just about the most accessible exercise that there is. Even people that are seriously deconditioned or very, very overweight can have small little walking snacks as part of their routine. And mostly people can handle this pretty well. Uh, it really supports heart health, so So you're doing cardiovascular work whenever you move, you're making your heart pump harder. And I said, you know, there was no speed or intensity kind of goal with this walk. It's just meant to be a stroll and get outdoors. But if you take on walk as kind of your normal daily movement activity, you can definitely make it a heart-healthy activity if you go a little bit faster. And it's really one of the— it's, it's just so, like I said, it's so accessible to everybody. It's so easy. It's free. You just walk outside your door. And do it. Now I realize, you know, there are parts of the country where maybe it's not so safe to walk for various reasons. Like I don't have sidewalks in my neighborhood, so that's a bit of a challenge. Here's a tip for walking outside. If you don't have sidewalks, you're always supposed to walk against traffic, right? Because you wanna be able to see the cars coming at you so that you can easily jump to the side if needed. But you know, and there might be, you know, maybe you live in an area that's higher crime or something like that, so maybe it's not as safe to walk outside, but you can possibly drive to a park or You know, just take some time to get outside, ideally daily, but definitely weekly. And I know that in cities it can be more challenging, but it's definitely going to help with your energy. It's going to help with your mood. It's like I said, helps heart health, and it's probably one of the easiest habits to repeat, which makes it perfect for a discipline practice because you can almost always convince yourself to go for a walk. If you have to convince yourself to go for a run or go to the gym and strength train or get in a cold pool to swim in the morning, those can all be very challenging., but just to go for a walk, I think most of us can convince ourselves to do that. I do have, since we're talking about what's more challenging, what's easier or not easier for exercising, and I may or may not have mentioned this before because I think I told you guys that I, some of the recordings for whatever reason didn't have sound. And so I may have mentioned this previously or I may not have. It may have been one of the recordings that are lost, but for years I just used this little trick for motivation, or actually it's a discipline trick more than motivation. Motivation, like I said, the whole reason we're not Talking about that this much in this challenge is because motivation comes and goes. I mean, it's great when you have it cuz it helps you get started on projects or started on a new exercise regime, but it quite often doesn't help you maintain that. That's where discipline comes in. Discipline is just doing the thing, right? So when I was a runner for 17 years, quite often there'd be many days I didn't feel like doing it. I didn't particularly actually even like running yet. I did it because of the whole discipline thing. That's one of the things I have cultivated pretty well over the years. But it would be like a conversation with myself if I really didn't feel like it. I would just say, okay, well just put on put on your outfit and go outside. You know, just get started for 5 minutes. And if you really don't feel like it, you can come back in. I mean, you can convince, or 2 minutes, whatever it is. It's the getting out the door or getting to the gym part. That's the hardest part. Once you're there, you're gonna do something. I almost guarantee it. In all the years I've tricked myself like this, it has never ended up that I didn't actually do something. And I'd say 95% of the time I did the whole workout. Workout or routine or whatever it was I had planned. So it might not always been to the perfect speed or the perfect intensity or anything like that, but I did it. And that is discipline. That is all it is, is just repeating it, being consistent. Uh, of course there may be times where you need to honor your body and take time off, and that's totally fine. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm just talking about when it's, you know, you should do it, you set aside the time to do it and you just don't want to. That's just a little trick there. So anyway, I hope wherever you are that you are able to get outside and take a walk today. Like I said, 15 minutes. So it's a little bit longer than the amount of movement that we've been doing. It's not gonna increase every day from here or anything like that. We know that that's not what this challenge is about. It's still gonna be 10 minutes of movement a day, but I just wanted to challenge you on this one. Get the outside, get that extra little 5 minutes outdoors, get your heart rate pumping a little bit, breathe in some fresh air and enjoy the scenery wherever you are. Like I said, my scenery right here right now is not all that exciting, but there's always things that you can find to observe. Once you get outside. And even it's just noticing how the clouds look today, cuz it is a dreary overcast day here in Cincinnati. But hope you enjoyed, uh, today's habit that we're trying, and I will see you again tomorrow.
