What is a pedometer, and how do you use one?
admin | Apr 29, 2011 | Comments 0
Pedometers have become popular in the past few years for good reasons. They are small gadgets that are lighter than a cell phone and can be clipped to your waistband. Inside, they have a moving switch (like a seesaw or teeter-totter) that “counts” every time you take a step. So if you go for a walk around the block or to the store and back, it will tell you how many steps you took.
The reason why I like them is because they give you something positive to work toward. When you have diabetes, you are always being told what you should not do! “Don’t eat cakes or candy. Don’t ever walk barefoot. Don’t…don’t…don’t.” But with a pedometer, you have something you can do—and the more you do, the better. I’m sure when you see a high number on your blood glucose meter, you don’t like it because it means that you ate too much or were stressed or took too little insulin or something like that. But on a pedometer, the higher the number is the happier you will be, because it means you have walked farther and done more exercise.
Here is a good way to start using a pedometer. Every morning, reset it to zero and then just go about your regular daily life. Every night when you go to bed, record how many steps you took that day. You can record it in the same book where you write down your blood glucose readings, your insulin doses, and the amounts of carbohydrate that you ate. At the end of the week, you can take the
average (by adding all the pedometer numbers and dividing by seven). You might also notice patterns. Let’s say at the end of the week, you averaged 3,400 steps per day. But maybe you notice that on one of these days you had 5,100 steps. What was different that day? Did you miss your bus stop and have to walk five extra blocks out of your way? Did you go for a walk with a friend over lunch?
A pedometer just makes you more conscious about what you are doing and how much activity you have in your daily life. It makes it easy for you to set goals to be more active. If you try to add a thousand steps every day, you will be well on your way to adding regular exercise to your life. Start using the stairs instead of the elevator. Park farther away from the mall or from your office. Go for a walk over lunch or in the evening. When you take the dog for a walk, go three extra blocks before turning for home. You will be amazed at how easy it is to gradually add steps to your daily routine. If adding a
thousand steps per day gets too easy, then go for adding two thousand or three thousand. If you can gradually increase the number of steps you take every day, and you can maintain that for several weeks, you will begin to see and feel the benefit in your mood, energy level, blood glucose average, blood pressure, and weight.
You hear a lot about ten thousand steps being a kind of magic number for using a pedometer. A lot of people think that if you can get yourself up to doing ten thousand steps per day, then you will be able to lose weight and keep it off. You will also get a lot of heart benefit when you are up to that level of daily activity. It is certainly a good goal to shoot for, but if you find you just can’t do that much, do not get discouraged. Any amount of activity and exercise is better than none. Build up to a goal that you can keep doing for months or years on end, and only increase it when you feel that you can do it comfortably.
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