Lorain County Walks

Lorain County Walks is an online activity tracking program designed to help you get active and healthy. Health experts recommend walking about 10,000 steps a day (about 5 miles) on most days to support heart health. Increase energy, decrease stress and have fun by tracking steps with Lorain County Walks!

How to participate in Lorain County Walks:

1. Sign up: Create an account in the sidebar to the right. It’s completely FREE. Walk on your own, with friends, or join challenges online.
2. Record steps: Use a wearable device, app, or pedometer to count steps. Record them in Lorain County Walks each day.
3. Reap benefits: Feel and look better. Have fun. Reduce the risk of heart attack, colon cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure.

Walk with a group to get more steps

Walking with a group is a proven way to keep motivated and may improve physical and mental health.

Visit a Fit Walks location-- Fit Walks is one of the longest-running walking groups in Lorain County. It also provides a safe place to walk indoors during the winter months.

Visit our two locations:

Oberlin Splash Zone
95 W Hamilton St, Oberlin, OH 44074
Mondays @ 5:30 pm

Mercy Health & Recreation Center
47160 Hollstein Dr, Amherst, OH 44001
Thursdays @ 5:30 pm

Check out United We Sweat for more free physical activity opportunities around Lorain County.

Download printable walking maps [link to page] or learn how to create a walking map [link to page] for your community.

How to use Lorain County Walks

Click here to download a PDF of the guide. [link pdf]

Create an account and track your activity

1. Visit Walks.LiveHealthyLorainCounty.com and click on Join Today!
2. Fill out the registration questions.
3. Create your login information.
4. Start walking! Log in daily to track your progress, or link your FitBit wearable device to your account.

Create a Challenge: Invite your friends and coworkers. Get competitive with friends and coworkers, no matter what kind of device they use to track their steps. See directions to create a challenge below.

Create a walking challenge

1. Log in to Lorain County Walks.
2. Click the My Challenges tab, select Create a Challenge on the right-hand side of the page.
   1. Choose your Challenge type
      1. Private Challenges – Only people you add to your Challenge teams can see your Challenge and join.
      2. Public Challenges – Anyone using Lorain County Walks can see your Challenge’s name and ask to join.Answer questions to customize your Challenge:
   2. Add and name your teams.
3. On the next page, add the emails of your participants to each team. Those participants will get an email inviting them to your Challenge.
4. Choose to send automated reminder emails through Lorain County Walks to let your participants know when your Challenge starts and ends.
5. After creating a challenge, you can go back and edit your options by clicking back to the My Challenge screen.

Join a walking challenge
Either:

1. The Challenge owner will invite you to join an existing Challenge via email, or
2. Join a public Challenge by clicking Join Public Challenge on the My Challenge page. Choose the Challenge and team that you want to join. Then, the Challenge creator will get an email letting them know that you want to join, and add you to your team.

Leave a walking challenge
Leave a Challenge at any time by clicking Leave Challenge.

View and share results
On the My Challenges page, click View next to your Challenge. You’ll see names and rankings of teams, average team steps, and team progress over time.

How much physical activity do I need?

Health experts recommend walking around 10,000 steps a day (about 5 miles) on most days to increase energy and decrease stress. Walk to keep your heart healthy, and to help prevent health issues like: heart disease, heart attack, type 2 diabetes, some types of cancer, and osteoporosis. Physical activity can help with losing weight, but it's possible that more than steps 10,000 may be needed for weight loss.

The Surgeon General provides general guidelines about activity and how many steps you should take each day:

Level of Activity
900 - 3000 steps = Inactive
5000 - 7000 steps = Moderate
10000 + steps = Active

Get started with Lorain County Walks

Different people have different goals, baseline fitness and activity levels, and different lifestyles and attitudes toward fitness and physical activity. Once you have tracked your steps for a few days and determined your baseline steps for a day, set a reachable goal for the next week. For example, if your baseline number of steps per day is 6,000, you may decide to increase by 100 steps a day for the next seven days. The only competition you have is with yourself. So set a goal that is realistic and attainable for you. The big goal is 10,000 steps a day. The important thing is to gradually get more active and stay more active!

Tips for getting started

• Increase your activity level a little at a time. For example, consider an increase of 100 steps per day. This represents about one extra minute of walking per day - not a lot, but certainly enough to make a difference over time.
• For weight loss, take longer walks and increase exercise time, eventually building up to 45-60 minutes a day of walking.
• For a cardiovascular improvements, take shorter walks of greater intensity, eventually building up to about 20 non-stop minutes per walk.
• For a lifetime fitness, slowly build up to 6,000-10,000 steps a day and keep that level consistently over a lifetime.
• Wear comfortable shoes and thin socks.

Sometimes your pedometer might not count steps on a treadmill. Keep track of the miles you walked on the treadmill, and multiply each mile by 2,000 to get your total number of steps walked.

Kids love using pedometers and seeing how far they can walk. Using Lorain County Walks, kids can develop skills like: adding up steps, following maps, and setting goals.

If you are a part of a team, schedule times during the week to meet and walk together. This gives you a chance to socialize and stay motivated.

Always check with your physician before starting any exercise program. They will know if it is safe for you to exercise and guide you on how to get started.

Find a pedometer at a retail location (like a sporting goods store) or online through a retailer like Amazon. Most pedometers cost between $10 and $15.

Not wearable device? No problem! See how everyday activities make a difference using this sheet:

Additional Resources

• https://www.heart.org/
• www.pecentral.org