Fitness Journal - Stressing Your Pedometer

by Heather Long | More from this Blogger

23 Jul 2007 10:20 PM

Good evening, sorry for the lateness of the hour, but I wanted to get this journal entry in before I went to bed. Today was another run to get things done both around the house and in the yard. I'm having oral surgery on Friday to extract the painful wisdom tooth and it's next door neighbor that's been infected for a while now. Personally, I can't wait for the surgery, but in the meanwhile - I need to get things done so that I can rest afterwards.

Pedometer Stress

I've described using my pedometer before and we've talked many times about the 10,000 step program. 10,000 steps is a great way to kick start your own personal fitness. After all, 10,000 steps may seem like an easy number to achieve, but the average sedentary person only walks about 2,000 steps a day. 2,000 steps is more or less an equivalent of 1 mile. So 10,000 steps in a day is 5 miles - because I have been working hard at trying to not feel the pain in my face as well as getting the house ready for my oral surgery this coming weekend, I decided to start wearing my pedometer from the moment I get up till the moment I went to bed.

This is what I found out:

• I walk a lot more in the afternoon than I do in the morning. My mornings are spent primarily in front of the computer after my workout and while I take frequent breaks throughout the morning to do household chores
• For the two days I wore the pedometer all day long, I walked about 2,000 steps between 7 a.m. and 12 p.m. This number is likely higher if I hit the treadmill in the morning, I didn't on these two days
• Between 12 p.m. and 5 p.m. I walk an average of 4,500 steps. This includes one afternoon where I was mowing the lawn and one afternoon where I didn't - the day I mowed the lawn, this number was actually about 6500 whereas the day I didn't it was around 3,700
• Between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. I clock in another 2,500 steps give or take and this is not doing anything special like heading to the park or going out - I just get up and walk that much as a part of my natural habit

Now this experiment demonstrates I am walking roughly 9,000 steps a day on average - some days a little more, some days a little less. I found this interesting. I will be continuing this experiment throughout the week and posting my steps so we can keep track. I also noticed that on the day I did the lawn, my legs were not sore, but the following day they were - I was more inclined to do deep stretches while I was sitting or standing to keep my legs from cramping.

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Learn more about Heather Long

Heather Long is 35 years old and currently lives in Wylie, Texas. She has been a freelance writer for six years. Her husband and she met while working together at America Online over ten years ago.

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