Have Your Cake and Eat It Too

The other day i mentioned the health benfits of walking. In the same book, i just read that a half-hour commutute (by bike) burns eight calories a minute (it's a british book, they don't use kilojoules). But the bottom line is that it's the equivalent of 11kg of fat per year.

A Good Walk

It seems obvious that walking is good for our health - but how exactly? Well today i came across a list of proven health benefits...

- enhancing mental health
- reducing cholesterol
- reducing body fat
- reducing the risk of colon cancer
- reducing the risk of coronary disease/stroke
- lowering blood pressure
- helping flexibility and co-ordination
- helping control body weight

Ok, some of the list sounds like things old people worry about, but still it's a fairly comprehensive list. And of course, we can also add the carbon reductions from not driving for ridiculously short trips. That's the planet's health benefit!

Extra Time

I read today that the average motorist drives 15,000km in a year. I figure that for an average speed of 50km/hr (which is possibly optimistic) that means 300 hours of hanging on to the wheel, staring at the road. And we wonder why we feel short of time!

Imagine what you could do with an extra 300 hours.

Not Even If You Paid Me

"Not even if you paid me" was an expression my dad used to say for things he really abhored. Well it seems this local store has come fairly close to that. They'll only drive if someone pays them to do it.


Clearly, they used to be more enthusiastic about driving - at night you can see that the sign used to say "free".