I never made it official here on the blog, but the way I’m doing new year’s resolutions this year is to pick a different thing to focus on each month. That way, I won’t be torn into a million different directions like I usually am with resolutions, but at the same time I’ll be accountable for some progress in at least one major area of my life.
In January, my focus was all about finances (which is why we completed the spending freeze).
In February, my focus is all about moving more.
Since my first bout of nausea when I was six or seven weeks pregnant, I had basically stopped all exercise of almost any kind. I went from running faithfully three times a week to doing not much of anything at all. At first, I could blame the morning sickness. Then, when I hit the fourth month (and the start of the holidays), I could blame my busy-ness. After about five months, I could easily blame my lack of movement on my ever-increasing size and the fact that any extra movement seemed to make me sore.
But since my gestational diabetes scare, I determined that I needed to start incorporating some movement back into my life, even if it was just light.
Here was my plan:
– obtain a pedometer
– try to clock at least 10,000 steps a day
And that was it. Easy-peasy.
Now that I have said pedometer (thanks to my sister) and am now a week into tracking steps, I am quickly re-thinking my plan.
Before I started tracking steps, I was under the impression that because I’m on my feet almost the entire day at work, I was probably already close to getting 10,000 steps a day anyway (or that I’d only be maybe a couple thousand steps short).
Wrong.
Even on days like today, when I’m walking a TON at work, I still usually clock only 5,000 – 6,000 steps at my job max (and there are lots of days I don’t even hit 4,000). Basically, this has meant that I’ve started taking 30-40 minute walks every day after I get home to try and make up the difference.
I still have never hit 10,000 steps (and only hit 9,000 steps today actually, as evidenced by the picture above).
So here’s my revised plan after having tried this for a week:
*This week, I will hit 8,000 steps at least 6 days.
*Next week (the 3rd week of the month), I will hit 9,000 steps at least 5 of the days.
*The last week, I will hit 10,000 steps at least 5 of the days.
I’m hoping that if I gradually build up my step count, my body will respond more positively and I won’t feel so overwhelmed by it all (as I kind of started feeling about two days into the goal).
Have you ever used a pedometer or Fitbit or other step-tracking device? What are your strategies for getting in enough steps each day?