A walking tool

A few years back I asked for and got a pedometer for my birthday. Sadly, I couldn’t get the thing to work (I’ve always had rather rocky relationships with mechanical devices), so the pedometer sits idle on a shelf.

I’m thinking I may need to give it another try. In the April 2008 issue of Health magazine I read, “Researchers say that simply wearing a pedometer will help you walk an extra mile a day.” I wanted a little bit more ‘proof’ than that one sentence, so here’s more, from an online msnbc article citing an analysis that was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging –

“The analysis found that increasing physical activity depended on setting a goal and keeping a diary of the number of steps walked each day, said co-author Dr. Dena Bravata of Stanford University. Her report appears in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association (Nov. 2007)…
Bravata, a practicing internist, and her colleagues analyzed 20 studies from the United States and Canada and half a dozen from Japan, Europe and Australia. The average age of participants was 49, and 85 percent were female because some studies targeted women. The total number of volunteers overall was more than 2,700.
The research showed that pedometer users increased their physical activity by about 27 percent, walking about one mile more a day than they did before they started their step-counting routines. Most of the studies established a baseline by asking these walkers not to change their usual activity while wearing a sealed pedometer, that is, one where they couldn’t see the number of steps, for three to seven days.
On average, the volunteers lost a few pounds. And their blood pressure dropped enough to lower their risk for stroke and heart disease, Bravata said.
Keeping a step diary was key; those who didn’t do that showed no significant increase in walking. Pedometer users who didn’t have a step goal also failed to increase their physical activity.” [From http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21901412/]

Okay then. I haven’t yet started writing down my bites, and now number of steps will be another thing to journal. Maybe April will be the perfect time for a springy-new beginning: to start journaling both food intake and activity.

Notebook at the ready, I’ll be a walking fool with my walking tool.