Well, it seems I’m not alone in getting into the whole walking with a pedometer thing. An article in the latest TNT magazine shows that at least I’m not totally off the wrong track or alone in my goal to reach 10,000 steps a day. I still think its a bit geeky .. but I’ll admit to that!

I was so happy to see Ranita today. It is fair enough to exchange emails with people back home but to see and speak to someone in the flesh – it was really cool. On the one hand it really brought home how much I was missing everyone and Brisbane/Gold Coast, and on the other it really made me appreicate how lucky I am to be in London with all this opportunity to do … well, whatever I want. It also made me realise that I still have so much to do and so many places to visit. Its going to be a good next few months.

Total steps taken: 17,577

At some stage early yesterday morning (around 2am) time was taken back an hour. Apparently this is so children aren’t leaving home (to go to school) in the dark. I hadn’t really noticed how much this resulted in an extreme shortening of the day yesterday as I was at the movies during sunset and it felt natural for it to be dark when we got out. So when I left work today at about 5.30 I was shocked to find that it was pretty much pitch black with lights (street, car, store etc.) ablaze. I’d heard all about London getting dark early but I wasn’t really wasn’t prepared for what met me today.

Now I can hardly imagine what it will be like in a month’s time when it gets dark around 3-4pm.

House Rules

Oh, before I continue, these are the house rules for how I am counting my steps:

1. I only put my pedometer on when I leave my home and
2. I take it off as soon as I step foot inside my home

Beginning of an Obsession …

Previously I talked about the fact that I had actually been monitoring my steps for about a week before posting my first blog entry. I thought I had been averaging about 6,000-7,000 steps a day when in fact it turned out to be more like 9,000. My average had to have been pushed up by my massive effort on Sunday that saw me take 18,189 steps, as I couldn’t imagine how I could have possibly averaged 9,000 steps a day throughout the week particularly when I note my pathetic effort on one day that saw me take a paltry 4,138 steps. Okay, so why am I going on about it. Well, I think Sunday was the first day where I actually felt almost obsessed with, firstly, reaching the 10,000 step a day goal I had set for myself and, secondly, making up the steps I had missed on the days I didn’t make it to 10,000. Its amazing what wearing a pedometer actually does to encourage you to take those extra steps every day. To take another example, today just as I was about to walk into my building I happened to check my pedometer. It read 9,540. Almost before I even realized it I was off for a walk around the block.

Final step count for today: 10,084.

The following is a long drawn out tale about why I’m starting this blog. In short I am trying to improve my health and if I’m forced to write about it to the public at large (however boring that may be to you) then I can be held accountable (yes, its the auditor in me) if I don’t stick to my program.

I have been saying for some time now that I would like to improve my overall health and its time to finally do something about it. There is no one measure that can tell you whether you are healthy or not – but monitoring things such as blood pressure, cholesterol, body fat level, your diet and physical activity is a good place to start. Blood pressure (self-taken) and cholestoral levels (thanks Boots!) appear to be fine. Body fat level will hopefully take care of itself as part of my new outlook on life.

Thus, I’m left with the two things that I have direct control over: diet and physical activity.

Diet. Many of you know will know that going on a diet is the least of my concerns in life. I like my M&Ms and chips (or crisps for you UK folk) and darn it I’m not going to give them up. Of course a gal can’t live off M&Ms and chips alone (actually you probably could but I don’t think I’d admit it if I did!) so where I can, I am going to try and choose the healthier alternative. However, I must draw the line at eating a salad as a meal – salad is a side-dish thank you very much (to be ignored until you’ve stuffed yourself with your main meal such that you can legtimately state that you are too full to eat any more).

Physical Activity. It’s all about walking baby! Because I can’t seem to get off my sorry butt to go jogging (*gag*) or to the gym I have decided that walking is the key. I am now the proud owner of my third ever pedometer. Unfortunately I’ve managed to lose two already in my life time – one at the snowfields in Banff last year and another on a wonderful roller-coaster ride called X about four months ago. Here’s hoping it’ll be third time lucky! In case any of you are interested, and to have read this far you must be (that or you are so bored out of your brains that you have nothing better to do!) I have a Yamax Digi-Walker. It has a reputation for being the most accurate pedometer in the world. After all I wouldn’t want to cheat myself by getting one that overestimates my steps (… or do I? *grin*)

I don’t know who said it first but apparently walking at least 10,000 steps a day means you are on your way to achieving good health, 12,000 – 15,000 gets you into that weight loss category. So I said to myself, Grace, you will need to set yourself an achieveable goal otherwise I will see you giving up on this. 10,000 steps it is!

10,000 steps is a surprisingly tough target to hit. To give you some perspective here are the steps we took at a few theme parks in California that I managed to take note of before I lost my pedometer on X:

– 32,114 steps taken at Disneyland (8am-midnight)
– 16,011 steps taken at California Adventure Park (10am-6pm)
– 12,010 steps taken at Legoland (11am-5pm)

And as you can imagine we were hoofing it too!

The results so far …

I’ve been measuring my steps for about a week now (I’ll post the stats up tomorrow) and I’ve sort of been hovering around the 6,000-7,000 range. Apparently most people take, on average, only 3,000 steps in their every day life so I think I’m not doing too bad. I just have to make sure to make that extra effort to get it to 10,000.

On a side note: Right about the time I came to my senses a national campaign to get Britain healthier also began. It appeared to be something that was taken up by both ITV and BBC. BBC’s programme was aptly named: “Fat Nation – The Big Challenge”. The timing, I assure you, was purely coincidental.