Day 8 Walking with a Pedometer
Click here to begin the 31 Ways to Lose Weight Walking.
Pedometer Usage and Questions
Wear your pedometer as long as possible each day for maximum benefit. See the following: Stanford Study Finds Pedometers Help; Pedometers Lose Weight Even Without Changes in Diet.
How many steps should I be doing?
First get your average starting point and build up from there. The Walking to Lose Weight program works on building activity onto your existing life. While we are aiming to walk for a set period each day, with regular increases in distance or intensity, for both fitness and weight loss, this also needs to be seen within the context of your normal day. For weight management after your weight loss you need plenty of daily activity and this program is helping you find ways to become an averagely active person, at a minimum. At the same time it is not designed to turn you into a long distant walker-unless you want to.
Starting Point: The average person is said to do maybe 5,000-6,000 steps a normal day. This is considered inactive. To become a minimal qualifier for the active description you would need to do 10,000 steps a day. If you have been consistently inactive doing say 5,000 steps a day, your first goal is to work your way up to that 10,000 steps a day, every day. The walks will help with that. Once you can do that you will be losing weight assuming you are not eating additional calories. If you are hungrier because of the increased exercise choose fruit, or other nutritious snacks etc. Cut down where it is obviously a good idea. (You know where!)
If your starting point was already much higher say 10,000 steps which qualifies as low activity then you will be aiming for 15,000 steps a day.
After starting there is an initial weight loss shock reaction as your body adjusts from little to regular and increasing exercise, depending on what you are doing about your energy intake, that is, calories consumed.
So the starting point determines what you have to do to trigger weight loss. An active overweight person needs to do more in both variety and quantity to lose weight, unless you have been a 6 beers a night person and you cut beer out completely.
Where should I wear the pedometer?
Position the pedometer as comfortably as you can on the waistband of pants, skirt etc. The safety clip can be uncomfortable against bare skin so put the flat side towards the skin. It will stay on better if put slightly to one side, not centred at the front where it can be knocked more easily. If you are wearing a dress see if you can wear heavy underwear or leggings which will hold the pedometer. The safety clip will help hold it on. Alternatively wear it on a belt underneath or tie a scarf around the waist or hips.
There are some clothes which will look silly with a pedometer. Occasionally not wearing it is OK as you’re working out the average daily figure.
How can I fix my pedometer which shows too many /little steps and it doesn’t measure distance?
If you have doubts about the recorded number of steps you can do a quick check by resetting the counter shaking the pedometer for 5-10 times and check the resultant number. There will be an adjustment switch (either + or -) to increase or decrease the count. Check again. Usually this is fixed easily. If not it may be that some steps below a certain level aren’t registered. My pedometer is set to count only moderate and higher intensity movement. This means I know how much real action I’ve taken that day. I can get a count of fat burning minutes and a realistic calorie count. It is surprising how few minutes activity a 10,000 step day registers but the calories usage adds up very satisfactorily with intense activity.
If for some reason you cannot get your pedometer to register exactly the steps you are taking, it is still useful information. As previously pointed out the object at this time is to increase the steps taken in one day. Whatever your initial result the object is to get the steps you do every day up to probably about double. The figure needn’t be exact, you will still know if you are increasing your steps.
Also if your pedometer doesn’t give you a distance measurement, this can be calculated by multiplying the length of the average distance between your steps, and the number of steps done. To calculate the average, simply make a mark (with chalk, place a stick or walk on water!) at the beginning point and end of 10 steps. Measure this and divide by 10.
Hopefully you are enjoying wearing the pedometer and finding out how many steps your regular activities clock up. You will notice the benefit from taking a walk as the steps rapidly increase during this activity. As you get some idea of how many steps you need to have by a certain time of day to get those 10,000+ steps, it becomes easy. Now doing an extra trip to the shops, that walking DVD or getting up during the ads will seem worthwhile.
Some activities do not register as much as you might expect. Exercise which counts on the slow movement of the body such as weight lifting do not register many steps. Don’t worry your body still benefits! If you are a beginner this is something you will understand after a bit of experience – that no one measure of activity gives you exactly what you need. It is also very personal. Your body will tell you by giving you the results you want. Then you know you have the right collection of walking and other activities for you.
