10,000 steps and counting

In this month's Wet Noodle Posse e-zine, we posed the question, "What's your favorite way to exercise?" to the Noodlers. The majority of the answers (located at the bottom of the linked page) came back as walking, including mine. And it makes sense. Walking is probably the easiest exercise to add to your daily routine. You don't need any equipment other than a pair of good athletic shoes unless you count the purchase of a treadmill for walking indoors during cold and inclement weather. But I have to say my treadmill is one of the best purchases I've ever made. It's a piece of exercise equipment I actually use because 1) I like to walk and 2) I can do other things while walking on it. I typically read while on the treadmill, but you can also watch TV or movies or listen to music. And fellow Noodler Kiki Clark has even rigged up a platform across the front of her treadmill and cruises the Internet on her laptop while walking. Now that's talent. I might possibly make a misstep and go flying off the back of the treadmill into the wall. I can just see the look on my husband's face if he were to come home from work and find my arms and legs sticking out of the drywall.

Writers can lead a very sendetary lifestyle if we're not careful. Hours sitting in front of the computer isn't a recipe for great physical health. That's why I make the effort to go to Curves three times a week and walk every day. Last month, I started wearing a pedometer to count my steps and force myself to get in the recommended 10,000 steps a day. That means that at the end of the day, if I'm still short, I hop on the treadmill and walk and read until I reach 10,000. You might not think 10,000 is all that many steps in the course of a day, but according to The Walking Site, which has lots of information about the 10,000 steps program and walking in general, the average sedentary person may only take between 1,000 and 3,000 steps a day.

I challenge all of you to clip on a pedometer -- I have an inexpensive one from Sportline (TM) -- and get in 10,000 steps a day. You may need to take a few days of just normal activity to get your baseline, then work up to 10,000 steps. But every step you add will likely do good things for your body. And once you hit the 10,000 steps a day mark, don't miss a day. Exercise is like writing -- if you miss a day, it becomes easier to miss a second and then a third and so on. I'm up to 22 days and counting.

Some other sites with information about the 10,000 steps program:

http://www.10000steps.org.au/ (for the Australians among us)

http://www.shapeup.org/shape/steps.php

http://www.pbs.org/americaswalking/health/health20percentboost.html

Happy walking!

Labels: exercise, health

posted by Trish Milburn @ 8:43 AM