Last year, for my 72nd birthday, my son gave me one of those watches that keeps track of daily steps. It isn’t a fancy Fitbit, with all the bells and whistles, although it does monitor my blood pressure. It doesn’t appear to be very accurate. Yesterday I got several different readings: 190/100, 60/40 and 120/70. I’ve decided to go with the last one because it keeps me alive the longest.
Honestly, since my beagle died in 2013, I hadn’t been much of a walker. Oh, I walked from the pro shop to my golf cart on weekends and sometimes walked all the way to my riding lawn mower when the grass needed to be cut. I also walked to my office every day, but I work at home.
I read somewhere that the average American gained 5 pounds during this spring’s home quarantine. I think of myself as an above-average person, so I figured I was good for at least 10 added pounds. And now, I have become obsessed with walking.
I walk every morning, most afternoons and always after dinner. I look at my watch every 20 seconds. How many steps can I get in while inside the house? I know exactly how many steps it takes to walk around the kitchen island (27) and I know if I do that 75 times, I have walked a mile, and not only that, I become too dizzy and nauseous to eat. The pounds are dropping away.
The recommended 10,000 steps a day is just an arbitrary goal, so I started shooting for other benchmarks: 15,000, then 20,000, and 25,000, all of which I have achieved. I googled people who walk up to 60,000 steps a day, but it’s mostly fugitives escaping the law on foot. One guy claimed he did 70,000 a day. His wife finally left him, but that was okay with him because he got in a few more steps searching for her.
Here’s the craziest thing I do. I want to have some steps already on my watch when I awaken each morning so I am not starting from zero. The device doesn’t reset to 0 until midnight, so I go downstairs at 12:01, turn on the TV and get on the treadmill. Not only do I begin the day with 2,000 steps, but I have now seen every episode of Hot in Cleveland.
On Tuesday I was gone for almost three hours, just walking. “Where on earth have you been?” asked my worried wife as I finally sauntered up to the front door.
“I just kept walking and walking, Mary Ellen. Why not? I have nothing else to come home for….”
WOW, did that come out waaaay wrong. What I meant to say was: I have nothing else to come home to because I have no hobbies, I don’t play an instrument, I can’t cook, I don’t have a workshop, I hate gardening, and I don’t follow the stock market. I didn’t have time to say all that before the door was slammed in my face.
Later, I apologized. “Mary Ellen, that was a terrible thing I said. I’m sorry.”
“So you are walking back that remark?”
‘Yes, I am. And I think that counts as 1,000 steps.”
