Fitness Gadget For Desk Jockies (Or How To Get More Activity Back In Your Day)

I used to spend my entire day at a desk (yes...there was ping pong...thank goodness.) My problem was that I never got enough exercise during the work week. My commute was almost an hour each way and by the time I got home I was in no mood to go to the gym. I tried some of the old tricks such as moving my printer out of my office (which did help) and I tried to get out of my chair and meeting people face to face (instead of calling or emailing someone who was just down the hall.) I am no longer working there yet I have to be on top of my activity level and monitor it so I don't go the way of the couch potato.

Sometime last year I became fascinated with the concept of the pedometer. Previously I thought of a pedometer as one of those devices that someone buys in hopes to see how FAR they walk. My mother even had one years ago and we all agreed it was truly inconvenient. Back then you had to wear it on your waist, it looked like a garage door opener, and it never really did the job in a useful manner (it was just easier to drive in a car to calculate how far you walked.)

So sometime at the beginning of 2008 I did some new research to see if pedometers had improved. Much to my surprise, pedometers had come a long way. In my research I found one in particular that seemed to be a favorite: the Omron HJ-112 Digital Premium Pedometer.

This pedometer has an amazing 1,933 customer reviews (at the time of this post) on Amazon and has a score of 4.5 out of 5 stars. I decided to order two of these (one for me, one for my wife) and see if I could use it as an "activity motivator."

The device has some really cool (and critical) features:

1. Seven day memory
2. Tracks: [STEPS, AEROBIC STEPS, KCAL, AND MILES]
3. Can be carried anywhere on the body (including a purse)
4. Resets itself at midnight (and sends your work to the memory)

Now all I have described is a pedometer (a good one at that) but what I really want to point out is how having a device like this in your pocket everyday helps motivate you. You can obsess about kcals, miles, and steps all you want, but that is unnecessarily complicated. All that REALLY matters is that you are active and are trying to be MORE active. This is where the memory on this device is crucial (and essentially why you should by the model I recommended.)

After only a week of putting this thing in my pocket as I dressed everyday I realized that the "Steps" category for all practical purposes SHOULD be used ONLY as an index. Like television ratings are to programs, broadcast executives care more about how ratings are up and down, not necessarily what the number indicates (and I might add that very few people actually know what a rating point is.) The "Steps" you take in one day is completely relative to the day before (and the day following.) If you are only starting with 1000 steps on your first day then you walk 2000 steps on your second day, you have DOUBLED your activity level (better than doing nothing.) We can't all walk 10,000 steps in a day (as recommended by sources on the web) the very first day or even a year later for that matter. But you can walk more than you did the day before and that is progress.

I created this chart quickly in Excel.

(Important note: I JUST started using my pedometer again on the 26th of November...it had been in storage for several months before so this is "out of the gate" data)



What is important to note is that my activity level went UP when I started putting it in my pocket again (Sunday was a very lazy day and Monday we were in the car delivering meals to home bound folks.) Today (which is not listed because it ends at midnight) I looked at my 7 day history and decided to try to beat yesterday's steps (6247) and ended up RUNNING a couple of miles which I haven't done for MONTHS (btw the pedometer works just fine if you run with it too.)

In summary, I want to push all of you out there who know that they are having a hard time getting to the gym and want to move in a positive direction. I believe if you use this on a daily basis, you will become more active and those other goals such as losing weight, running more, going to the gym more will follow. This device is the first step in getting you out of the "desk rut" that you may be in.

Where to order: http://www.amazon.com/Omron-HJ-112-Digital-Premium-Pedometer/dp/B0000U1OCI

It's the perfect gadget for a New Year's Resolution . . .