Work Exercise Into Your Day 10 Minutes at a Time

Welcome to Walking the Walk, a feature that takes a deeper look at commonly shared diet and fitness advice. Every other week, I'll choose one piece of advice and practice it for seven days. Then I'll report back on what I discovered about making it work in real life and how it affected my own personal fitness -- and how it ultimately can affect your own efforts.

Visit a local gym on January 5th and you'll find it crawling with newly resolute members, determined that this is going to be the year they stick to their exercise goals. Go back and visit on February 5th and all those newbies will be long gone. Many people fail at exercise, and I think I know at least one reason why.

Maggie recently asked That's Fit readers if they were all-or-nothing thinkers, and 32% of you said yes ... when you mess up, you give up. Ever slipped up and had a donut at the office, even though a yogurt was waiting for you in the fridge? If you're an all-or-nothing thinker, that donut canceled out your diet for the day. Well, today's shot, you might have thought. Might as well start over tomorrow.

The same goes for exercise, I think. If we can't squeeze in a 45-minute walk on the treadmill or our favorite fitness class, well, might as well take the day off. But research has shown again and again that fitness isn't like that. Your body doesn't care if it happens all at once or if it happens on your favorite fitness machine. It knows nothing about schedules and routines, or that today was the day you were going to work your abs. It just wants to break a sweat -- on a regular basis.

This week on "Walking the Walk," I'm going to spread 30 minutes of exercise out over the course of the day. Will it still feel like I worked out? We're about to find out.