I have to say that I am extremely happy to see people commenting on the blog again. Thanks for reading and trust me, I appreciate everything that people say. This is still a bit of a work in progress as I try to get back into the groove of writing so things may not be at their best at all times but I will keep on working at it. Also, as you can tell from this week my current schedule just does not work very well with my old Sunday through Thursday posting routine so while I am still going to aim to post five nights a week I can’t guarantee just which nights those will be. Basically I write whenever I can sneak in the 20 or 30 minutes of time that this requires and until I either get a longer day or, preferably, a helper monkey things will have to be on an as it happens basis.
Speaking of trying to find time I decided to look at one aspect of my personal fitness that I had been ignoring. After reading A. J. Jacobs’ “Drop Dead Healthy”, in which he examines in detail a ton of fitness trends, I decided to look into this idea that you should walk 10,000 steps a day. After the debacle of buying three separate sound machines at least this time I found a free iPhone app before buying a pedometer at Target. After tracking my steps for a few days I’ve found out a few interesting facts.
On a daily basis I walk a little over 3,000 steps. Most of those are to and from my car in the parking lot and the only reason that I walk that many is that I tend to come to work later than most people so I end up with a parking space farther away from the door. Other than that my walking at work is confined to getting printouts and coffee (and I am requesting a helper monkey to take care of the latter.) One day at lunch I just decided to walk around for 20 minutes in which I walked a mile and took around 2,000 steps. All of this means is that there is no way in hell I could walk 10,000 steps in a day.
Think about it. That is a recommendation to walk five miles a day. Outside of specifically scheduling time on the treadmill there really is no practical way for me to achieve that amount of walking. It is not a question of ability. I’ve done four to five miles on a treadmill on a number of occasions. It is just that my current daily habits do not allow for anywhere near that much activity. I’m not sure I know of anyone, particularly anyone who works in an office job outside of a major city, that would naturally walk that much.
When I worked in downtown Chicago and took the train to work I wouldn’t be surprised if I walked that much. Certainly when I was in college and had to go back and forth to a number of buildings throughout the day that was the case. But now I find myself in a career path where getting up out of my chair is almost a rare occurrence. It really does say something about our current society where getting up and moving is considered rare. I’ve thought about walking to Subway or Starbucks when I work from home and I wonder what people would think about a guy walking a mile instead of driving.
Anyone have any advice on how to be more active in this regard? Outside of spending my lunch hour walking around the parking lot I’m not sure what to do. I mean, I did an hour workout in the morning so how much more activity should I do?
Wednesday Night Music Club: Not sure why but I’m kind of in the mood for Old Crow Medicine Show tonight. One of those bands that if you told me twenty years ago that this would be my favorite type of music I would have thought that you were insane. That said, twenty years ago I thought Sting was cool so what the hell do I know.
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