A Measured Life: Average Daily Mobility

The only true means of my remaining engaged in something is to measure it.  When I was doing my heart rate training, I created a very excellent Excel spreadsheet to carefully monitor my time in zones etc.  For the two years that I did this, I was in the best shape of my life.  I was 42 when I stopped.  I sprained my back water skiing.  I had strong legs, strong arms, but a weak back.  Plus, it had been almost 10 years since I had water skied according to my in-house historian (husbando).  Geez, I wouldn't have thought it had been that long.  A reminder of how quickly time flies.

My almost 8 month recovery from that injury proved to be a break in a regimen that caused me to fall off the wagon.  Despite half-hearted attempts to get back on, clearly I wasn't committed enough to do that.  In this space, I will chronicle my crawl back onto the wagon.

My SIL was telling me about her Fitbit to guide her in how she was reaching (or not) 10,000 steps per day.  You can find information about Fitbit here.  As I have a smartphone and a Runtastic application that I love (but use too little), I looked for a pedometer for my phone. Runtastic had an application.  For $1.99 I downloaded their Pro version.

As I woke up this morning, I had the thought that I would chronicle for you a series of "A Measured Life" to bring to you some perspective on what can be gained by measuring certain aspects of your life.  (Currently I have a timer running on my Pomodoro, and I will not take more than 25 minutes to write about this.  I only have 14 minutes more to go.....

As I'm in the mode of being conscious of my circumstances, one of those circumstances is a health circumstance and a time management circumstance. To marry these two I elected to do a 25 minute Pomodoro for housework incorporating a pedometer measurement.  What a great way to kill two birds with one stone.  (Such a violent metaphor.)


Results:  In my 25 minute housework session which involved a couple of trips upstairs, one trip outside to empty compost, and standing folding laundry I took this many steps:  694 or 7% of recommended steps. 

You can add another bird to the stone carnage by considering the money that you would save by cleaning your own home.  Sure, I understand as much as anyone about the preciousness of time.  However, if you are spending time going to the gym, or worse, if you are foregoing exercise altogether, there is a real benefit in increasing your mobility in doing your housework.

Now, personally do not think that 10,000 steps is anything but a measure of overall mobility during the day. But remember that I'm talking about being conscious of a circumstance, that particular circumstance is how mobile (measured in steps) am I AND how can I develop a gage of calibrating my mobility?  In this small 25 minute segment, I realize that I have far to go.  But that housework is a contributor.  I will also calibrate this with my outdoor exercise which I will undertake.

The Pomodoro has gone off, and I must be on my way.  My challenge to you is to measure your daily mobility and set a goal to reach 10,000 steps.  I'm taking that challenge too.  I'll report this week.

P. S. 7:43 p.m.  I managed just 7410 steps.  I might have had another 200 unrecorded steps, as I didn't have my phone on the entire time.  I'm tired.  Honor your body!  I'll work up to my 10K steps.  For now, 7,500 steps is going to be the minimum until I train my body a bit more.  (And this is a surprise.)    I currently have 173 calories to go after I eat my dinner.  I'm going to have a second glass of wine.