Shedding the Couch Potato

I got a pedometer to help me lose weight, and I must say that I am a bit disappointed. It registers steps only when I hit my stride of about twenty-six inches. I think that’s an accurate calculation of my stride length, but I really take a lot of short ones. I also had to replace the clip that came with the pedometer with a small binder clip. The useless lump of plastic they had as a clip wouldn’t even open after I took it off the lanyard. I have to clip the pedometer to my pants near my belly to get it to work, although it might work from my pocket or bra now that I’ve figured out how I could get from the front of the house to my bedroom in the back in three steps. The house isn’t that small, after all. It’s because I only took three striding steps. I must stride around the house, which is not that easy to do, because my house isn’t huge either.

So I changed my stride length to about a foot and that seems to make it work better. Although I can reach a stride length of twenty-six inches, it doesn’t come naturally. I walk quickly with shorter strides. So I got that set, now, I have an issue with it resetting itself, randomly. I have noticed that because there is absolutely no way I am getting an accurate count of the steps I take in a day. It rarely shows me making more than two hundred steps. I know that my job requires me to be sedentary, but really, that’s too low, especially when it registered that I only took around two hundred steps after walking through two stores and their parking lots after walking in my house for around a hundred steps. Therefore, I concluded that the placement is wrong. I needed to find a good place to wear the thing where it was unlikely to reset itself. That took several weeks.

Of course, it doesn’t register even one step of the virtual bike ride I take in the mornings, either. So, now , I’m trying to combine a number of activities into my routine. At breaks, I tried bundling up and going for short walks, striding with ground eating strides. The weather dropped us into the freezer for the entire month of January and a good portion of February. I’m getting better results in March.

I’ve been doing Tai Chi at lunch which doesn’t register on the pedometer, but I will continue it anyway, as I do want to lose weight. I think between the morning stretch/aerobics, the break time walks, and the Tai Chi, I should start to see my weight drop a little each week. Once I turn that into a habit, I will see it falling consistently. That’s what I’m hoping to see, what I actually see is probably going to be different. I’d like to lose between one and two pounds lost each week, but I know that is a stretch.

I have a steps log set up for the entire year. I’ll try monitoring my steps going forward and see what I can come up with as a weekly figure. I need to make a weekly average of twenty-five to thirty-five thousand steps. I’m not sure I can do that, that’s five thousand steps per day. I expect I will figure out a way.

About pebblepup

I am not one who is comfortable talking about myself but here goes. I enjoy writing, family history, and reading. I decided to do this blog because I wanted to try something new. I decided to make it a weekly blog because I wasn't sure that I could keep up with a daily one, and monthly seemed like I was writing a magazine. I think I did ok with my choices. You'll notice that there are not a lot of graphics on my site. That's because there are graphics plastered everywhere on the Internet and those sites sometimes take forever to load. This blog is a place where you can kick back, relax and be ready to be amused. At least I hope I willbamuse you. This blog is on a variety of subjects from my ficitional cat agency, the FFL, which is monthly, to instructional blogs to editorials, which are my opinions only. I admit that I don't know everything and could be wrong -- I frequently am. Now, stop reading about me and read what I have to say!