There are 30 days in April. That’s more than 300,000 steps. That’s a lot of steps. Based on the steps average of my cube neighbor Delberto, Lead, it would take just about four months to get to that total.
I love my Fitbit. Mostly I love the silent alarm. But the counting of steps is good too. From what I’ve read (I could find the source but just trust me) if you walk less than 5,00 steps a day then you live a pretty sedentary lifestyle. Most people with desk jobs fall into this category. The apparently goal is the reach 10,000 steps which on average translates to about 5 miles. The American Heart Association uses this as their suggested guideline for improving health and decreasing risk of heart disease. I think it would be hard to find an argument against reducing the risk of heart disease. Even the devil’s advocate would be speechless there. They have a whole site dedicated to this.
Based on zero statistics whatsoever I would estimate that I accomplish this goal by accident at least 75% of the time. Unfortunately for this challenge, 22 days is else than acceptable. Generally on days that I work out I end up reaching my goal, but at least one day a weekend I usually end up somewhere below 5,000. This was even more true during the winter. Short walks with Swarley and lots of couch sitting is not the recipe to an active lifestyle.
April will be different. By the end of the month, unless we have a repeat of last year, the snow should all be gone. We’ve already hit 70 once and it looks like we might have seen our last day that doesn’t get above freezing. Between the gym, running outside and taking long walks on some nice spring days I think this is easily accomplished. It will definitely help my awareness having this challenge, as usual, so I won’t be ending days above 8k but below 10k. In that range I can always easily go for a pup walk.
Besides the weather, another main reason for choosing April as the month to shoot for this was work. I have an annual work conference that will take up parts of four days. Four days that would have derailed most of my other options. Did I mention that those four days will be spent in Vegas? Health be damned. Food, drinks and gambling are not usually conducive to being healthy. Luckily that city is conducive to walking. Beautiful weather and sprawling casinos fit perfectly.
I’m sure there will be some time to sit down at the poker table while I’m there, that will be my biggest challenge. Aside from bathroom breaks I think he best term to describe me sitting there is “parked”. So good luck to me on 10K a day, hopefully I will be able to taunt my Fitbit friends the whole time (if you have a Fitbit, find me and help keep me motivated, or keep you motivated).
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