Can a brisk walk really improve your health? How do people make an effort to break sedentary behaviour and get their daily steps in when we’re so busy with work or school on most days of the week? A participant of HPB's National Steps Challenge share his journey to better health through walking.
Walking to Good Health
Who: Muhammad Farhan s/o Badriul Zama, 20
Occupation: Student
Every morning before Farhan leaves the house, he straps on his steps tracker to clock the number of steps he will take. On weekdays when he goes to school, he would choose to walk to and from the Woodlands MRT station to Republic Polytechnic, as a form of active commuting.
He had gotten the tracker when he signed up for one of HPB's Challenges.
An avid nature lover, he unwinds with his friends by cycling, trekking and even rock climbing. “All the stress is gone when we go to a place like Pulau Ubin. It's a quiet area, and when we go there we don't really care about all the stress, we just want to have our fun”. However, they weren't always so into sports.
“Before the Challenge, we weren't interested in going out to parks or cycling”, Farhan recounted. Instead, Farhan who juggles his studies with student council duties, would destress by snacking. But when he and his friends noticed a crowd at Republic Polytechnic queuing up to collect the steps tracker, they joined in, and haven't looked back since.
Initially, Farhan would forget to wear the tracker, but soon, he made it a habit to check his step count regularly and now even feels “strange” without the tracker on his wrist.
“We started to do active stuff because of the Challenge, and even after, we stepped it up. I really feel healthier and really happy. Since I love nature, and with the Challenge, I've been going out to many parks in Singapore which made me feel really good about how life can change with an addition of more active time,” he explained.
Besides that, he's curbed his snacking habit along the way by telling himself, “I'm working out a lot, so why would I want to waste all the time I spent on exercising for nothing?”
Farhan certainly won't be stopping anytime soon, as he continues to clock his steps daily with the tracker, even after the Challenge has concluded.
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