Since Tuesday I’ve been out of the house only briefly that day to pick up mail from town but I have walked 10.5km. I think I’ve done pretty good for not leaving the house. The last couple of weeks or so I’ve been wearing a pedometer pretty well steady. When I first started wearing it, I was barely breaking 1000 steps in a day, not good considering the average for a somewhat sedentary person is 5,000 a day.
I know I spend a lot of time in a day at the computer which means I’m sitting down but since I’m a large person, I can’t afford to be THAT sedentary. Once a week I walk with a friend of mine, she’s very kind about stopping frequently because I’m out of wind due to my size and lack of exercise. Once a week is good, it is some exercise but it isn’t really effective exercise for someone who needs to improve.
I’m not stopping as often as I had been when we first started last fall but I need to be doing a LOT better.
Last week, I started doing walk in place which I can do in the house and even while I’m watching TV. The routine I use, is 15 seconds walk in place and 15 side steps. Mindless, simple but with persistence can build up stamina. I was able to more or less comfortably do 5 maybe 10 minutes a couple of times a day at the beginning of last week. That served to jump my total steps up to 2,000 in a day. Nothing earth shattering but a step forward.
Over the course of last week and now this week, I’ve managed to push the individual sessions up in length. This morning, I did 30 minutes and about an hour ago, another 20 minutes. Later this evening, I expect to do another 10 minutes giving me 60 minutes total for the day. At this point, I have walked 7609 steps or 3.95km.
I would say that is a pretty decent improvement in less than 2 weeks. My first target was to reach 5,000 steps. My next one is to hit 10,000 average per day. That should mean about 90 minutes a day minimum walking to hit there. Although, as my stamina and strength improves, I should be able to step up the pace and increase my number of steps in less time.
April 12th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
hi patti
(at least i am assuming your name is patti, given the title of the post),
i know how you feel about the whole walking thing. being a person “of size” and ill-tempered toward moving any more than necessary, i can state that any walking you do will certainly help you. two years ago i weighed in at 272 pounds and the last thing i could consider was to move for any reason.
keep up the good work. it may sound patronizing, but you will feel better the more you do it.
much luck!
-nn
April 12th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
Thanks NN and yes my name is Patti.
Your comment isn’t patronizing at all because you are right. I have about 100lbs on you at this point so while some would think that I’m doing exercise lite I’m actually up and starting moving more which is the big part of the challenge. The next part is keeping it going. I just finished my other 10 minutes of walk in place and I’m up to just over 9,000 steps for the day so I should be able to make the 10k steps tomorrow.
You didn’t tell me how much you weigh now, I’m assuming that you gave me a year ago weight because it has changed?