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.