Last month, Heather at Mom2MomConnection, posted about taking on A Journey of 10,000 Steps. She challenged us to join her “Secret Pedometer Club”. At the time I found it intriguing and even commented that I might need to look into tracking my steps. Well, Wednesday I mention to Erik that we need bread and meds for our last remaining sickie…”oh and I wanted one of those pedometer thingies”. He says that’s not a problem and he arrives at the house that night with this little blue plastic contraption. It seemed like he was anxious for me to give it a whirl…so I did.
Somehow hearing the soft little “tink, tink” with each step I took motivated me to walk all over the house Wednesday night. If I was sitting still I felt guilty lol. Thursday morning I actually pulled out the instruction booklet to attempt setting it the way they tell you to – I’ll admit I grew impatient with it, hooked it on my pants and off I went. I checked it periodically to make sure it was still tracking my movements. I wasn’t planning to walk on the treadmill (planned to do pilates instead) but I wanted to add to my count so I jumped on for 20 minutes.
My grand total for yesterday was….
7674 steps
Ok, so that is more than I thought I would have but falls way short of 10,000 just to be “healthy”. I read the same thing Heather did in my “instruction booklet” that people who desire to lose weight should be walking 12,000/day. What’s sad, I walked on the treadmill AND yesterday was “vacuum, mop & sweep day”. So we’re talking an “average” day without a walk would probably be 4K or less! ACK!
Like Heather, I refuse to be discouraged. I'm viewing things differently. Before, I'd try to take the shortest route but now I'm thinking about ways to increase steps. Suddenly getting a horrid parking spot seems less like a curse and more like a blessing in disguise. We were to go to the park today if Ann(3) felt up to going to preschool. She's still a bit under the weather so I'm keeping her home another day. The park wouldn't be an option any way as it is raining (which truly is a blessing since we've not gotten enough of it lately). I'll have to find other ways to get those steps in today.
I may not be at the ideal step level but I figure each additional step counts for something. When I ran cross-country I would recite the verse below to keep me in rhythm. I had a tendency to become impatient and try to finish too quickly. It came to mind immediately when I realized I fell very short of that "ideal number".
“and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Hebrews 12:1b-2