Monday, March 17, 2014

Get To Steppin'!

I am trying to encourage myself to be more active throughout the day.

One of the ways I am doing that is by wearing the Garmin vivofit and tracking my steps.  The device sets a goal for me each day - but I still have a personal goal of 10K steps per day.  Garmin, right now, hasn't surpassed 9K for my daily goal.  The device starts out giving you a goal of 7500.  It then makes adjustments based on your activity.  The first week, I well surpassed each goal it gave me.  But this past week has been more of a struggle.

Here are some of the ways that I am getting in more steps at work:


Use the hallway!  
We have this great hallway - I have to walk down it to get to the bathroom. If I plan it right, I can make my trip to the bathroom go around kind of loopy so I can do a few laps in the hallway.  The Garmin also notifies me when I haven't been active in an hour - sitting too long!  This hallway is a great place to pace up and down so I can get a few hundred steps in.  I also find that if I'm feeling tired or over-full or whatever, some hallway laps can really help perk me up.


Use the walking trail!
I am very fortunate to have a great walking trail outside my office building.  It's a perk that not everyone has.  I very much enjoyed this outdoor space over the summer and into the fall and am very eager for all the cold weather to be GONE so I can use this path more often! It winds around the ponds and the area from the path to the water is filled with wild grass and flowers.  


Take the stairs!
I have to admit that I'm not so great at going UP the stairs but I am doing better about consistently going DOWN the stairs.  The challenge, sometimes, is the shoes I wear.  But most of the time, I choose to take the stairs.  Someday, once I drop a few pounds, I'll be including the stairs as part of my hallway lap and it will all make a nice cool down from walking on that outdoor trail!


GOAL!
Syncing up my Garmin to the Connect app really helps motivate me.  I like seeing the bar go green when I surpass the goal for the day.  I like seeing when I've been more active.  The below shows a lunchtime walk and also an evening home workout.


As for the weekends, those are actually proving to be more of a challenge.  It seems I am busy going places but not actually being active once I get there.  Lots of time in the car, sitting and waiting, sitting or standing at church... but not a lot of walking.  Once the weather breaks, I am hoping to be able to spend more time outdoors.  For now, my at home walking workout is Leslie Sansone.  I have a few DVD's but I find that I prefer to jump online, set up the workout on my laptop and then can have a TV show going while I follow along.

For right now, I'm hoping to find an accountability partner.  If I have someone that I need to check in on and someone that I know is going to be checking on me, I might find myself more motivated to get to my goal before check in time happens.

How do YOU get extra activity into your day?

sig jan 2014 photo owlsig.jpg

5 comments:

Sara C said...

Girl I have five flights of stairs to my office and I get winded after 2. You're inspiring me to take them more often, though!

Lenze said...

My kids make me walk up and down the stairs in my house as daily exercise. Does that count? :) My dear neighbor/friend does this and the steps total steps she takes on the weekend vs weekdays is crazy. I am curious myself on how many steps I take vs. if I really tried to take the extra steps (if that makes sense), but I want to borrow someone's first. But I do take extra steps to put up the cart at the grocery store then leave next to my car.

Cherie from the Queen of Free said...

I find that I actually do more housework & yard work because I'm a step fiend now. So going out of my way to put things in the right place or pick something up that I've been putting off actually has a great reward. Keep it up my friend! You can do it. I just upped my steps to 12K because I was consistently hitting 10K.

Angie @ Just Like The Number said...

I've been aiming to get 150 minutes of exercise in a week. I'm lucky, though, every week at work I unload an entire semi. I'd love to wear a pedometer on those nights and see how many steps I get!

Amy said...

I think I can actually feel my butt growing from all the sitting I do. I've contemplated a wrist-based step counter. The Fit Bit or the Garmin. Hmmm...now to find a blog somewhere that is giving one away ;)