Ever had that feeling of being in control of something, like your pedometer steps, and then ‘life’ gets in the way? Say you normally go to the gym at 6.30 am as its the only time you can fit it in. Something happens, or you just can’t get yourself out of bed, and you miss it. That’s it for that day. which is OK because it is normal to have a few mishaps which affect your schedule, unless you fall into that downward spiral where it can seem bigger than it is.
This is where a commitment to exercise can add to the pressure and keep us focused. Independence is great because the only one who can get you exercising the rest of your life is you but an independent person chooses the companions and systems which most help him or her to succeed.
When you participate in a group event that is put together with compatible goals in mind, there is an energy and synergy which can lift you over hurdles and remind you of the bright side of what you are doing. Far better than needing to persuade a loved one!
Walking every day is fabulous. It is something I really look forward to, and gives me a buzz, when I get the combination right. When I do it just enough to reach my goal pedometer steps, it acts as a catalyst then I am motivated and energized to do other things that day!
Your exercise program should add to your overall activity not be a substitute for it. For women with busy family commitments, the tiredness from starting a new exercise program, often becomes an excuse for not participating. The activity based 10000 steps a day weight loss program excels in this instance providing a format for individual needs to be met.
Pedometer steps counting is an exercise tool which perfectly suits men by taking the focus off weight loss, or health issues, and onto increasing the number of steps walked over time. This challenges and stimulates their competitive nature in a good way.
There is a freedom when joining a group especially designed to help reach a shared goal. Structure enough to achieve, freedom to meet your own schedule-
While thinking about writing this post of Pedals & Pedometer Steps I re-read the latest edition of The New! Walker recently and it reminded me of the question I once heard someone ask: How did you handle the emotions of the sport?
What a great question. How do you handle the emotions involved when counting pedometer steps or walking for weight loss?
I love listening to sporting greats, and everyday sportsmen and women, because often I learn something valuable about the attitudes which are most helpful to develop when taking on a regimen or training which is pushing physical limits and emotional limits as well. These are my favorite mentors (unofficial mentoring from listening, reading or viewing) even though I am not attempting to succeed as a sports person. Perhaps it’s because they are usually in it for themselves, and then use their success as a catalyst for ‘giving back’ whether through foundations or simply helping out with community events, etc.
Why do I like that? I like the positive inspiration of someone wanting to be involved in something, good at something, or developing a talent or skill.
I also enjoy So You Think You Can Dance once the final twenty have been chosen and start watching from that point in the show.This is then a positive and uplifting opportunity to watch people who excel and see how they handle the ups and downs and physical stresses of doing this. These are great teachers, intentionally or unintentionally.
We can benefit enormously from these unofficial mentors-aspirational figures who inspire by being true to their desires.
The New! Walker makes the point that there are ways to have others involved in your pedometer steps and walking for weight loss program. In fact since this is a lifestyle change it is necessary to find easy ways to integrate others into the llfestyle which supports your continued weight loss.
But…
“This often means that they are not likely to be bosom buddies. They may not have the same politics or worldview. You may not immediately, or ever, want them as close friends. You want the benefit of a joint commitment which you are determined to keep.”
This is where handling the emotions is important. The less emotional investment in the relationships enables more easy commitment to the exercise program. At the same time we want to ensure that all our other relationship needs are also being met, but perhaps separately, at least at first.
A mentor can be simply someone who inspires you, helps or advises you, even if you are not in a personal relationship with them. Even those people who deny having had mentors, probably because of the definition they are using, had them. Simply hearing about the influences on their sporting or other life, reveals that someone has motivated them.
The Susan Boyle story (does anyone not know who Susan Boyle is?) from an unrelated field physically is a lesson in handling the emotions. Her main contribution for most though is as the role model for not giving up, whatever your background or age.
Suggestion: can you name your inspirations for walking and counting pedometer steps?
Pedals and Pedometer Steps’ posts have concentrated on walking and pedometer steps specifically, although the “pedals” part is important as well. It just doesn’t fit that well in a pedometer steps blog, as you probably realize, because a bike doesn’t register on a pedometer that well.
The video above from Trey Zepeda contains some good walking and cycling tips using a treadmill and exercise cycle. These are great workout options and starting with these 2 pieces of equipment makes for variety and good cardio.
Using a ‘real’ bike had been an ambition for me over many years. I’m probably one of the few who didn’t learn to ride as a kid and although I have ridden occasionally as an adult, it has never ‘taken’. It does seem to be a great way to exercise and it seems to me that bike riders are rarely overweight.
As with walking it is not my ambition to join a bike club but to add to the variety of my exercise routine in a way which is fun, with lots of options to built cycling into my lifestyle. The fact that biking can be social is also a factor however this is not its main attraction.
Pedometer steps is my favorite way to walk for weight loss because it becomes easy to amalgamate within your life. It can be an enjoyable and effective lifestyle, has travel options and contributes to the other daily tasks. Cycling doesn’t have quite the flexibility of pedometer steps to fit into your daily life unless you ride to work, go to school or shop, visit neighbors or the dry cleaners on your bike.
However the combination of the two seems to cover some very good exercise options for an outdoor lifestyle and of course the indoor options are also good for the times that outdoors is not your venue of choice. With these indoor options for cycling there is no necessity to have any bike riding skill so these are immediately accessible for the beginner as well.
In the long term as I restructure my lifestyle to maintain rather than lose weight, I anticipate making cycling one of my main weight maintenance activities.
I am not abandoning pedometer steps as my weight loss option as, compared to walking for weight loss, taking up cycling in the outdoors, requires much more involvement from me than walking. Walking doesn’t require special skills, equipment, proper tracks, skill or training, etc. The gym options are good and spin classes excel for weight loss and fitness.
I’m looking forward to taking up cycling. Who knows it may be just ’round the corner,
This post will continue on from my last Pedals and Pedometer Steps post: Pedometer Steps Spiral. In summary that post was revealing the playing field, so to speak, of pedometer steps counting and walking for weight loss. It is similar to the training done for playing a game such as football, rather than the actual game itself. All that ongoing preparation (walking) is done for the intermittent reward of playing the game (weight loss).
Also part of the process is a natural increase in your body’s ability to perform its set tasks. To progress in your ’sport’ or weight loss, means increasing your exercise and training to a level where new efforts also increase the results. Hence the spiral-while continuing to do similar routines the intensity increases.
Any serious physical activity requires preparation and execution for success. If this is part of your job then you do it everyday and this is equivalent to mental and physical training.
My point from the last post was that aiming for the small increases in performance or results, appreciating the ones you achieve and then setting the bar a little higher, is the best way to get a large result. So with your pedometer steps’ target you should look to increase it by comfortable amounts until you reach your limit for doable daily steps. Then you can look at making a monthly target which incorporates longer walks than you might be able to do regularly. If weight loss has ceased with your daily 10000 steps then adding a monthly long walk and increasing pedometer steps by an additional 15000 to 20000 for the month, should start it again. This would bring your daily average an additional 500+ steps. All these small changes count. Sometimes the results are so small, or your eye is so used to seeing yourself, that you don’t see them. At some point you will.
Others who understand this are your best support. How you get this support is part of your preparation for success.
The about-to-be- published next edition ofThe New! Walker is covering an issue which Pedals & Pedometer Steps feel strongly about-the support necessary for success in weight loss. It focuses on the difference between feeling bereft with the overwhelming issue of so much weight to lose and the luxurious feeling of having the support which helps you to do your best easily, while feeling good about it.
Where you are, compared to other participants depends upon where your walking fitness training starts, and like other things in life, it has a tendency to repeat or cycle back at a different level i.e. spiral.
The number of pedometer steps to target for you is dependent upon several factors. This is why Pedals & Pedometer Steps generally recommends you wear a pedometer for several days prior to entering a fitness program. Doing this ensures you know what is the real starting point. Average pedometer steps are often taken to be 3000 steps in 30 minutes as a recommended walk. A taller, fitter person, walking on a pathway will probably number more steps in the same time. By noting your pedometer steps results each night over 3-5 consecutive days, totalling them and them finding the average, you will have your personal ‘level’.
For someone who has not exercised in some time this starting point may be disappointing. Pedometer steps increase rapidly though. Just watch and enjoy as the numbers keep on going up. Finding your level, starting at your level, is not failure in advance. It sets you up to rocket up the results chart. Success breeds confidence a major factor in exercise and weight loss.
Just in case you’re wondering-doesn’t confidence breed disrespect i.e. now I’m so wonderful I don’t need good health or to lose weight?
Confidence helps you to reach your goals. It enables you to stretch your efforts beyond what you would have done. This can be called over-confidence but unless you have made a ridiculous commitment, it is not, it is finding your limits. Again this allows you to position yourself in such a way as to make the changes necessary to achieve and again make rapid progress, towards your unchanged goal.
Over my lifetime I had a tendency to see any ‘failure’ when trying for bigger and better results, as a sentence: The end. When I attempted smaller and better though, I found the results were like rungs of a ladder. Easy to climb to the top!
Pedometer steps counting is truly a feature of the modern age. Walking itself as a leisure activity or necessary means of transport has been with us forever.
As with technology of other sorts the pedometer is a means of increasing our satisfaction with the ongoing process of walking for health (weight loss in particular) or fitness (training). Logging pedometer steps whether online or in a journal is part of the self interest movement of the last 20 years. We are more engaged with a process when it not only relates to, but includes, us. On the one hand it acknowledges that “we” make a difference, at least to our own results. On the other hand it streamlines the process to fit like a glove.
The weight loss dream has far too many components for easy assessment. We all know the nightmare of the scales and its lackluster performance as a guide. For some twenty years have gone by without the right combination of the stars and good fortune. Well the time is now. Never have we lived in such a choice- full, abundant society where many more suffer the diseases of excess than lack. Over whelm when it comes to finding the ‘right’ weight loss program is more likely to be the difficulty. Copying someone else’s successful process can have limited success for weight loss in the short term but for longer lifestyle choices then the changes must be one’s you choose.
The New Walker will be my new walking for weight loss e-letter. It is a combination of news and anecdote, thoughts, questions and answers and philosophy of life. Pedometer steps are my favorite way to get someone hooked on the new wonder ‘drug’ of exercise and activity as an anti-depressant, stress relief, mental and creative stimulant and mood enhancer. This is not to mention the other feel good benefits to the body and disposition.
One of my ‘new’ discoveries has been the benefits of walking after eating a meal. In the books of the 1800s and early 1900s, it was often mentioned that the family but particularly the head of the household would go for an evening walk after the meal. It aids digestion and generally makes me feel good by adding pedometer steps. If for some reason (!) you have eaten too much it also is one way of lessening any guilt and even reducing the effects of any excess calories.
The new walker does have most of the characteristics of the old except that the deliberate introduction of activity into a lifestyle previously devoid of much exercise from necessity, is different, because to exercise or not is now a choice.
Pedometer Steps and Walking to Lose Weight are my favorite blogs to write as the benefits of walking have helped me feel good every day. Am I claiming a happy ever after scenario? I am claiming the processes and tools to being happy every day in a healthy and loving work, home and family environment. The process requires implementing, adapting and using those tools with as much enthusiasm as possible. The New Walker is one way to get some input into your new lifestyle in a comfortable manner.
Please sign up for the FREE e-letter, The New Walker, in the column on the right if you’re open to making changes over time which will enhance your life, give you confidence and the desire to live your life lovingly,
Counting pedometer steps means making sure the typical life changes we all experience don’t interfere with our intention to make this our best weight loss routine. Every life has ups and downs and pedometer steps can be part of that life no matter what!
A successful strategy for integrating life’s changes such as moving house or job, extra responsibility at work or home, is to prepare for the change in advance. I liken this option to a child attending pre-school, to learn the skills he will need at big school but which aren’t taught at school. It is better to allow a gradual understanding of what works best to come through experience of similar conditions. Adaptation is one of the better human skills. Overwhelm doesn’t help if it results in giving up or struggling but putting a toe into the water to get a feel for what is coming helps a lot.
Using a pedometer is easy. Walking is easy. Making the time to do it is generally most people’s challenge. So plan it into your day as much as possible. When moving make sure that walking paths and beautiful environments are in your new area. It is really good to have shops and cafes within walking distance of work or home. When traveling these are also options to consider-stay within a reasonable walking distance of your venue if attending a conference, or include walking opportunities if it is a holiday; dance if at a wedding.
These are changes that can be made over time but will pay off as weight loss and well being become an accepted part of your daily life. Eventually once a routine of pedometer steps is fully integrated the pedometer itself becomes less important. Activity has become a habit.
Walking for weight loss and other activity burns calories. Be sensible about eating and your body will look after the rest.
Today I want to go over the importance of pedometer steps in my life. It could be important for you too.
This is what happens for me by using the 10,000+ pedometer steps a day exercise strategy:
1. First thing in the morning upon waking I see the pedometer on the bedside table and as soon as I am dressed I put it on. This ensures I am aware that during today I want to achieve at least 10,000 steps.
2. I quickly review my options for adding walking into the day’s program.
3.I know that if I keep an eye on my pedometer steps tally at regular intervals I can make decisions easily which are better than I might otherwise make.
4. I do have options during most days which I sometimes don’t see. I always do such and such at lunch or a friend likes to do X and I do it with her. Today though that friend might have an errand to run, say pick up the dry cleaning and I say I’ll meet her there, and I will walk.
5. Dead time becomes your friend- waiting drives most of us crazy but many times I can substitute waiting with walking time. Say I’m at the doctors and he’s running late-I tell the nurse that I’ll be outside walking (within earshot) and to give me a holler when it’s time.
Pedometer walking has some advantages over adding distinct walking periods say 30 minutes once a day. Doing 10,000 steps is probably about 5 miles walking on average. Your 30 minute walk is say 2.5 miles. What are you doing for the rest of the day? For many of us adding the 30 minutes initially is a great boost for weight loss and fitness but if you compensate by less activity at other times or, as is normal, your body adjusts to the exercise, then before long you’re not doing enough for weight loss or fitness.
Once your body adjusts to 10,000+ steps daily (on average) this activity level burns enough calories to balance normal eating and therefore maintain weight. Prior to this modified eating levels i.e. removing obvious high calorie foods or drinks and limiting calories consumed in a day, means less calories consumed (eaten) than expended (exercise) and weight is lost.
To further demonstrate the walking meditation technique which Pedals and Pedometer Steps uses, I have taken photos at different points in a walk to illustrate some of my thinking at these times.
Intentionally setting out to quiet and uplift my mind I take an existing route so finding my way is not a distraction. I wear my pedometer as counting pedometer steps is a major part of my goal.
Setting out
I look around for cars and then focus on the general scenery.
Looking Around
Thinks: This looks like a nice path. Nice and quiet.
Tree Trunk
Thinks: Interesting tree trunk.
Walking Meditation
Now my thinking is unconscious as I admire the beauty of the scene, how pleasing it is here and lovely to walk around as the temperature is perfect, the birds are chirping, the water looks inviting and peaceful.
Have you considered combining two of the world’s most popular forms of stress relief- walking and meditation?
As you’re reading Pedals and Pedometer Steps your main interest in walking may be for fitness and weight loss. Also as you’ve developed your regular walking you may well have noticed yourself feeling better generally.
If you are having difficulty fitting everything into your life and you meditate you can have the best of both world’s with a walking meditation. The video below demonstrates the sort of attention one needs to pay to details.
A major part of my pedometer steps progress has come from combining the activities necessary to get the steps’ target and also to act as a release valve for stress and frustration.
Walking in itself is a wonderful way to divert the mind of frustration and release a feeling of well being. Each step enables us to concentrate on where we are physically, noticing details of our surroundings in positive ways.
The major difference between a Pedometer Steps’ Meditation and the Zen version above is that you will have your pedometer strapped on and be walking with intention to exercise your body at the same time as you rest your mind.
Start Walking, Get Running, and Lose Weightis filled with common sense strategies for managing the food you eat and simple but very effective exercise plans that ease you into shape.
A Proven Walking or Running Plan For All Ages and Experience Levels...
