Return of the pedometer

This post was originally published at Get Fit Chicks. It may refer to posts on Get Fit Chicks that no longer exist. Please email me if you run into any of those and I will break the links. More information about the reposting is available here

Just over a year ago, I lamented the loss of my pedometer...I loved it. It was a great way for me to track whether I was getting enough exercise or not.

On Saturday, Alex took the car in to get the winter tires put on and when he was readjusting the seats after they were done, he found the missing pedometer! I can't wait to start using it again. I've been off work this week with some yucky germs my kid generously brought home from daycare and shared with me, so I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but I think that since I started driving to work and since we moved offices, I'm way low on my 10,000 step target.

I'm going to readjust and try for 8,000 a day for the first week…otherwise, my body might just scream and yell at me. Gradual reentry, here I come!

Virtual Pedometrics

This post was originally published at Get Fit Chicks. It may refer to posts on Get Fit Chicks that no longer exist. Please email me if you run into any of those and I will break the links. More information about the reposting is available here

As soon as I wrote my last post about my pedometer, well, I lost it…It fell off somewhere between dinner and home…And it was up there that day…Oh well.

So I’ve begun relying on the Gmaps Pedometer instead. I will eventually get a new pedometer, but there is so much else going on right now! I figure that I walked at least 4 kilometres a day when I had the pedometer and I wanted to increase my steps from 10,000 to 12,000, so if I walk 5 kilometers that will probably do it. I’m not sure how many of my steps make up a kilometre as I never calibrated my pedometer that way – I walk faster in the morning than in the afternoon, so my numbers would be off.

That means a walk at lunch time is in order. Tomorrow I’m hoping to start swimming again, so I’ll get about 1.5 kilometres in on top of my usual. We’re getting there!

Extra kilometre here I come!

Step By Step

This post was originally published at Get Fit Chicks. It may refer to posts on Get Fit Chicks that no longer exist. Please email me if you run into any of those and I will break the links. More information about the reposting is available here

So, when I went back to work, I set a goal of an average of 70,000 steps every week (Monday – Sunday). I chose to set a weekly goal rather than daily goal because some days I knew I’d have a lazy day or I’d drive to work or I would just be low for some reason and some days I’d have super excellent wonderful days. And that happened. When we went to the PNE, my total was 18,121 and the next day when Jocelyn was sick and we spent most of the on the couch together I hit 6,225.

10,000 steps is what everyone should be walking in day. Most people reach between 4,000 and 6,000. Around 6,000 steps most people will gain some health benefit as that’s around 30 – 40 minutes of exercise over the course of the day. 10,000 steps should help promote weight loss.

I knew 10,000 a day would be fairly easy to achieve on days when I work – I walk about 3 km before I even get to my desk with dropping Jocelyn off at day care and then walking from the bus stop to my office.

So now that I’ve been back for four weeks, I figured I should check in and see how I’m doing.

The first week I was back, I only wore the pedometer once, so I’m ignoring that week. Week two I averaged 11,767 for a total of 70,601 0ver six days (I forgot the pedometer on Monday); week three I averaged 14,230 for a total of 99,613 and this week’s first five days I’m already at 71,115.

I think I’m going to readjust and aim for 84,000 steps a week or an average of 12,000 steps a day which might mean going for a walk at lunch time which will have double benefits as it will mean I’m not eating at my desk!

Where did I go?

I get my blog back and then I vanish. Well sort of. I didn't vanish, I just quit publishing on the internet for the better part of a month. It's been a crazy month and by crazy I don't mean busy. I mean crazy.

But the month is almost over and I hope that April will be a better month. Not that there was anything I could do to make any of the ugh that was March go away. Three years ago I started this blog and I never would have imagined I'd still be at it three years later! At the end of March that year I was also looking forward to April, and surprisingly while some of those reasons no longer apply today, a good number of them do!.

Back then I was excited for April for these reasons (apparently I'd just learned how to change font colour or something!):
1. in the words of my very intelligent sister: punk come to vangroovy (I think she sounds like she's imitating a muppet...Elmo or Animal or someone...)
2. punk come to vangroovy to celebrate her champagne birthday (and Kelsey's too)
3. easter
4. road trip to Kelowna with Kelsey and Alex
5. cherry blossoms at UBC
6. Champagne Birthday Party for Kelsey and Rebecca
7. we're going to a wedding
8. dessert with the Mulvis tonight...okay, so not officially April, but it still counts cause it's Friday and tomorrow is April
9. April Fools

So,
1. punk lives here now
2. you can only have a champagne birthday once in your lifetime, but there will be a birthday at the end of April for Rebecca and Kelsey
3. Easter is in two weeks
4. no road trip this April, although a trip to the grocery store (8 blocks) can feel like a road trip if you take the baby along
5. I bet they're still there, but I'm not
6. Some kind of birthday party for Kelsey and Rebecca (I must have been super excited for this since it's there twice)
7. no wedding
8. it's not April and I'm going to have dinner (so probably also dessert) with the Mulvis tonight...
9. April Fools. Yes it will be happening. No, I'm not looking forward to it.

I have some lofty goals for April...I hope I get to them all
1. Paint the storage room
2. Put shelves in the storage room
3. Buy a deep freeze and install in the storage room
4. Get rid of the mountain of laundry
5. Get rid of the boxes that are still not unpacked
6. Walk 70,000 steps/week...

That's it. The laundry alone could take 35 days to do, so I might be out of luck!

Okay, I'm back. That was boring. There's a baby chattering from her bed, so I have to go now.

Pedometric Challenges

Yes, they continue. At least I obsessively check the pedometer, so I can add the biggest numbers together when the stupid thing restarts itself compulsively. Like this morning. My bus stop is over 1 km from my office. Apparently I've only walked 64 steps this morning. Ya, right...I had major issues with it yesterday too.

Sigh...

My goal of 8,000 wasn't hard to get to on Friday, but on Saturday and Sunday when it was rainy and gross and I wanted to eat turkey and not go outside, well, it was different story. I find though, that once I hit 8,000, I really want to get to 10,000, so the incentive factor is working. I might splurge and pick up a proper pedometer this afternoon so that I can better participate and not mess up my team's totals...and to motivate myself to keep moving. I'm also interested in seeing how far I walk when I'm travelling.

And because I'm a dork and apparently don't have enough to do (HA!), I made a pretty chart showing my steps vs my goal.


Yup, dork...here's the team standings too (Marcie's training for a half marathon....)



DORK!

Stupid pedometer and the overuse and abuse of the word so

My pedometer sucks. I walked all over yesterday and by the time I got home only about 1,200 steps had registered...not even close to the 4,000 that was my goal.

So I checked the calibration like the instructions said. I walked my 20 steps and if it was calibrated the thing should have read between 19 and 21 steps. I did it five or six times. The counter moved, oh, five steps over the course of 100+ steps. Not good.

So I figured the next step was to reset it and if that didn't work, I'd pop the battery in and out and if THAT didn't work, I'd take it back this morning.

So I pushed the reset button and held for four seconds as instructed. And then the screen showed 12008 except somehow I must have broken it because the bottom bar on the 8 was missing.

So I made a cup of tea.

After a while I thought I'd try to reset it again and if that didn't work, I'd take the battery out. Reset didn't work. The cover didn't come off. But the numbers had changed. It now said 12258 and the 8 was still missing the bottom bar.

So I gave up and went to bed.

This morning I realized that my single function pedometer has ghosts because it's a clock. That thing, it's a clock! It was reading 09348 with a missing bottom bar this morning and a few minutes later, it was reading 09398. Which means the 8 is an A for am. I got the cover off, popped the battery out and reset the thing. It's working. My little walk to work this morning brought me close to 2,000 - already a better showing than half a day yesterday!

Pedometer Challenge

The Healthy, Safety and Environment Department has decided to do a walking/running challenge with the staff on campus. It is of course completely voluntary. We tried to have a friendly two team competition in our office, but only one team got signed up in time. The challenge started yesterday - we didn't manage to get our pedometers until half way through today, but I'm sure we'll make up for lost time!

Interesting (or not) pedometer facts

• There are approximately 1320 steps in a kilometer for a person with an average stride length of 76 centimeters
• Under 5000 steps/day could indicate you have a sedentary lifestyle
• 5,000-7,499 steps/day could indicate daily activity excluding sports/exercise and could indicate a lifestyle with a low activity level
• 7,500-9,999 steps/day likely includes some exercise or walking (and/or a job that requires more walking) and could indicate a somewhat active lifestyle
• 10,000 steps/day could classifies individuals as having an active lifestyle
• More than 12,500 steps/day could indicate a highly active lifestyle
• The number of steps and the type of lifestyle indicated change with weight, height, age and indication of chronic illness

The challenge from the Health, Safety and Environment Office is to walk from here to the other campus.

• Distance between campuses: 395 km or so.
• Number of steps between campuses: 521,400 steps
• Number of steps on my pedometer right now (having only wandered around the office for two hours): 431
• Today's goal (being that it's only part of a day and I have a class tonight): 4,000
• Tomorrow's goal (not knowing what my average steps are anyway) : 8,000