Journey to One Million Steps

Good Morning! Although it is a bit earlier to be up here than I would hope for. I hate waking up and not being able to fall back to sleep. I've got a lot going on at work right now, and my mind starts "racing" thinking about everything. So rather than staying in bed, tossing and turning - I find it is better to just get up and start getting some things done.

Back at the beginning of the year, I set a goal to walk 1 million steps. I started wearing my pedometer every day and logging my steps. One thing about tracking your steps, you can see just how much you really move in the day. It can be really interesting to see the results - both in a good and a bad way. Sometimes you will be surprised with how many steps you can get in by just doing regular things (like going to the grocery store). While other times, you will see just how little you move doing the everything - especially if you have a desk job like I do.

Anyways, last week I got a fitbit (www.fitbit.com). It is very similar to a pedometer (in that it counts your steps), but it is actually more of an accelerometer (not sure about that spelling). The fitbit not only tracks my steps, but it tracks the intensity of those steps. So when I log into their website, I can see my activity broken down into whether I was sedentary, lightly active, fairly active, or very active. It is all very interesting and motivating to a certain degree.

Things I have learned: 1) My old pedometer was shorting me steps (there was a 1,000+ step difference when I wore them both side by side). 2) Being able to see how active, as well as when I'm active, has been a good motivator to get up and moving throughout the day. 3) Most of my day is spent being sedentary. Although I could have told you that. After all, I do have a desk job.

The fitbit website has an online community and one of the members posted challenges for this week. I signed up for the "10K steps per day" challenge. There were also challenges for 20K and 30K per day. A week ago, I probably would have told you there is no way I would ever put in 20K, much less 30K per day. But since working towards the 10K, I've changed my tune about the 20K - and I now have it as a goal to works towards someday. If you check out my steps status on the right, you'll see that I've done well at meeting the 10K per day since the challenge was posted on Sunday. Walking in the pouring down rain is difficult, mentally - but thankfully, by the time I get back home, I'm glad I went. Curt and Miss B have very supportive as well - helping out to make sure I can take 30 minutes to get out. And if it isn't raining, they both come with me. It is a good opportunity for Miss B to practice her bike riding skills.

Now that I've rambled on....I hope you all have a great day. The weekend is almost here.