Pedometers step up motivation

Published 9:00 pm Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Caroline Brown has a drawer full of pedometers. There’s one to match nearly every outfit she owns.

“I’m mad for pedometers,” Brown said. It figures. The 52-year-old is health and fitness director at the Marysville YMCA.

What doesn’t figure is that I’m also suddenly mad for these step-counting gadgets. I’m suddenly so sold on my pedometer, I attach it to my bathrobe pocket while I’m getting ready for work.

Clickety-click, all day long, clipped on the waistband of office clothes and gym shorts, while I do dishes and walk the dog, my pedometer totes up every step I take, plus or minus who knows how many?

I doubt my red plastic pedometer with its Herald logo is super accurate, but so what? At the end of a day at my desk, low numbers are the kick in the pants I need. It’s amazing, the boost a short walk adds to a daily count.

Pedometers went mainstream more than a year ago, when McDonald’s included a pedometer in its Go Active! Happy Meal of salad and a drink. I never bothered to try one.

So I’m late to the counting craze, which promotes at least 10,000 steps a day, or about five miles. I didn’t expect to be so hooked. I try to run every evening – well, jog. But I’m not fast. I’m not competitive. And I’m definitely not into personal electronics.

To its credit, The Herald has a new walking club. When I first heard about it, I ignored it. I don’t have much time to walk with co-workers. Turns out, you just wear a Herald-supplied pedometer and that’s it for the walking club.

There are more than 50 of us keeping track of steps. We turn in daily totals on the honor system. Shaking a pedometer registers steps, but I haven’t cheated, not even on a sit-around day of 4,000 steps.

We’re in good company. Kids in Snohomish County’s Get Movin’ program got pedometers at a June kickoff event at Everett Mall. As part of the summer program, some area mayors are wearing pedometers, competing against each other in a race for steps.

“My mayor placed fifth so far. He’s into it,” Brown said of Marysville Mayor Dennis Kendall. I can guess who’s out front. Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson runs in my neighborhood all the time.

For me, the only competition is against my steps from the day before. It’s a head game, wearing a pedometer on your hip. Tempted to put off running to the basement to do laundry? Remember, those steps count.

Pedometers, which have an internal lever triggered by hip movement, can be as basic as the plastic one I have, which just counts steps. They can be as complex as the DashTrak, made by WalkStyles, a chic $129 device that tracks steps, distance, calorie burn and heart rate, and can be linked to your personal computer to record information.

Brown likes Digi-Walker pedometers, made by New Lifestyles, Inc. Depending on features, they cost $25 to $35.

“It’s just one tool in the toolbox, but it really inspires people,” said Brown, a former PE teacher at Holy Cross High School, now Archbishop Murphy. “I tell people to wear them when they get up, wear them until they go to bed, just don’t wear them in the shower,” she said.

Brown averages about 1,000 steps an hour during a busy day. On sedentary days, when she’s in meetings or doing payroll, “I feel like I haven’t done my thing,” she said.

Fitness experts toss around ballpark numbers. “Four thousand, that’s low sedentary, and 5,000 to 7,499 is usual daily activity,” Brown said. On a somewhat active day, you’d walk 7,500 to 9,999 steps. “And 10,000 steps a day is classified as active,” Brown said.

Either my pedometer is over-ambitious, or I’m busier than I ever knew, working, chasing my child, doing house stuff and running. On a normal weekday, I go about 20,000 steps. Weekend days, I’m close to doubling that.

It’s summer, though. Come January, I’ll either cheat or admit to being a 4,000-step couch potato.

Brown said it’s more important to increase activity by 500 to 1,000 steps a day than to worry about making the 10,000 mark. “If you’re 83, with hip or knee problems, you’re not going to do 10,000 steps.

“Do as many as you can,” she said. “Every day, it’s how many more can I do tomorrow? It’s infectious.”

Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.