After I gave birth to our second son, like most women, I really wanted to get active and healthy again. Any woman with children knows just how challenging some days can be with little ones, the simple act of having a hot cup of tea might just be your biggest achievement for the day.

To this day I will tell anyone and everyone who will listen, that the best investment I ever made during my early days of motherhood was a good, sturdy, paddock-worthy pram. Being in the bush our dirt roads are usually pretty rough and ready so you just have to make the best with what you have. This is why I love walking as a form of exercise so very much; all you need is a road, and in my case a pram as well.

Walking is by far the most functional of all movement practices. Your body is designed to walk and it loves to move. I have addressed the value in incidental movement practices but now I want you to know just how walking for 30 minutes a day can change your life. Not only will it make you fitter, but it is a wonderful time for thought and meditation, it can warm you up on a chilly morning, you are guaranteed to feel better for the rest of the day and this will lead to better food choices to fuel the body you are moving. As you can tell, I love to get my 30 minutes of exercise in first thing in the morning; alarm set and off I go. This is MY time to prepare for the day, to practices new skills and to move. It is then that I can give of myself to others and feel like I have achieved something no matter how the day pans out.

So off we would go; 2 kids armed with snacks, several dogs and hills… Oh how those hills challenged me. I always felt happy and proud when we returned home, and the kids loved it too!