I peer-pressured my friends to join me in an office-sponsored American Heart Association walking contest.
Starting today, as a team, we are to wear pedometers and track how many steps we’ve taken each day.
Teammate Jamie modelling the Pedometer
At the office they have actually marked out walking paths in order to provide small goals.
- Masquerade Way Walking Path
- 5 laps = 1 mile = 2000 steps
- Bourbon Street Walking Path
- 3 laps = 1 mile = 2000 steps
- Creole Avenue Walking Path
- 4 laps = 1 mile = 2000 steps
The “Virtual Walks” get us to 3 destinations/goals, with the ultimate destination/goal being New Orleans.
- The Ohio State University – 275,160 steps
- Nashville, Tennessee – 815,300 steps
- New Orleans, Louisiana – 1,063,840 steps
And on September 23rd we’ll celebrate reaching our goals with a Mardi Gras Party!
um….
yeah.
someone didn’t Google Mardi Gras.
ah well…free food
Anyway, we all have to register at a web site where we log our steps for the day, and if you want, you can take it further and log meal calories, other workout classes you do like Yoga or Spinning, etc. But the real thing to track is your walking.
And you don’t have to limit it to the walking paths. If you take a walk outside of work ours, or if you wear your pedometer on the treadmill at the gym, that will count. You are expected to put on your pedometer at the beginning of each day, and your regular day to day activity will be part of your total count. BUT you have a big goal to reach, so the more walking you do outside your normal routine, the better.
And really any other activity that activates the pedometer. Like bouncing on balls. Whatever…movement is movement, and the point of the challenge is to move more and get healthy, right?
Teammate Steve Cheating
I may get annoyed after a while putting the damn thing on, but then again, it could just become a habit. And given that this is going on for so long, it will be neat to see who sticks with it, and how much it helps people.
Will first point the finger at myself…I’ve been pretty bad the past few months. I’m now on a kick to get my ass back in gear for spring (3.4 lbs so far…woot!), but I definitely have a good load of weight to lose. Anything that “peer pressures” me into sticking with my plans is good. And I have to NOT walk down the Food Aisle at work. This is the aisle of cubes where the people who are responsible for all of our potlucks and food days sit, so there is ALWAYS something there.
Evil Food Aisle
Evil Delicious Candy Bowl
Evil Chips & Home Made Emeril Recipe Warm Dip in a little electric dip warmer. *sigh*
And to turn it around, I have friends at the office that are so out of shape that I’m actively worried about them. One is healing from a knee replacement, another was in the hospital for a “heart incident” last summer…I saw most of them at the kick-off meeting today and I REALLY hope they stick with it.
Anyway, as I see it, the whole point is to DESTROY THE COMPETITION. Tiger Blood, Baby.
Wish us luck!
xo
en