I just started a new exercise regimen; it’s called walking. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. Apparently it’s been around for a while?

Basically, I got this thing called a pedometer, which is like a portable treadmill. It has the screen part, but that’s it. I can’t hang clothes on it. So that’s a huge plus.

Anyway, when you get a treadmill, everyone always says, “Why are you getting a treadmill? You can’t just walk around outside for free?” And the one thing you can say is that you need something to count how much you’re walking, or else it’s not exercise. Exercise doesn’t work unless you’re counting. It’s literally all about the numbers. And I was tired of walking around all the time, counting my steps in my head like an idiot.

And I’m always looking for ways to work out that I’ll actually do. I constantly have it on my to-do list: “Work out.” I’ve written about it a bunch of times, too. But I don’t actually work out for the most part.

Also, with most exercises that you take on, the first couple of days you feel like you’re losing weight, but then over time you start losing less, and you get very discouraged, especially since believe it or not, your main responsibility to your family is not to become better and better at jumping jacks. So eventually you drop it. But what—are you going to stop walking? At most, you’ll do less walking. You’re already walking every day; the only question is how much. So fine, you have to walk a little bit more. You already know you can do it. You’ve had days where you’ve walked way more than you thought you could. But you’ve never had days where you’ve done way more pushups than you thought you could. And it’s not like with pushups, where some days you say, “I’m not going to get down on the floor right now.” You’re already walking. Even at the end of the day when you’re tired and can’t move, you’re still walking up to your bed.

The point is that walking is literally the easiest exercise you can do. You’ve basically given up.

“I’m going to walk!”

Thanks. We all walk.

“Well, I’m going to walk more than I otherwise would!”

They say that you’re supposed to try for about 10,000 steps a day. 10,000 steps a day. That totally sounds like a scientific number and not at all like something someone yelled out when people kept annoyingly asking him what they should be aiming for: “I don’t know; ten thousand steps!”

That number is way too round. It ends in four zeroes. And it’s the same for every person, right? It’s like how you’re supposed to drink eight cups of water a day, despite knowing one person who could hold that in their cheeks, and another who can comfortably bathe in it.

I kind of feel like this whole10,000-steps thing was a ploy to sell pedometers. We have to come up with a high enough number that everyone’s going to say, “There’s no way I can count that in my head.” There’s no way people in the old days were counting their steps.

In fact, maybe walking isn’t even a real exercise, and the whole thing is a scam by the pedometer people. They invented a device that counts steps, and they said, “Who’s going to want to do that? Who is that obsessive?” “Well, what if we tell them it’s a weight-loss thing?”

It doesn’t even make sense that it’s an exercise. In fact, the cool thing about a pedometer is that you just put it in your pocket and forget about it, and it ends up in the laundry. No, I’m kidding. But you don’t realize you’re working out as you’re working out. And later in the day you’re looking through your pockets, and you’re like, “Hey! I’m already halfway through working out for the day!” It’s like found money.

In fact, I read somewhere that we burn a certain number of calories just by sitting and breathing, so I think there should be some kind of pedometer-type device for both of those things. That way, I can try to beat my high score of sitting and breathing for the day. Though actually, the way to breathe more is to not sit as much. But whatever; I’ll figure it out. Make it happen, pedometer people!

So I bought myself a pedometer.

My son asked me, “Why do you need a pedometer if you already have a phone? Why not get a pedometer app?”

Yeah, I’m going to count my steps with a device that I have to charge twice a day.

Also, a pedometer is a reminder to walk. A phone is not.

And #3, this is a kid who’s always borrowing my phone: “Totty, can I have your screen?”

“Here, take my pedometer.”

Basically, you need a pedometer that doesn’t have games your kids want to borrow.

But actually, I did download a pedometer app—before I even had this conversation—and it turns out that even when you don’t physically have the app, your phone is tracking how much you walk, which is super-comforting. I know this because as soon as I opened it, there were stats up from the previous seven days. And I thought, “Boy! Apparently, according to this, I don’t walk very much on Shabbos.” And that made no sense, because if anything, I walk more on Shabbos!

And then I realized that it’s just my phone that doesn’t move on Shabbos. Because again, my nightstand doesn’t walk.

The fact that I’m this tired is the reason I don’t work out much.

Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia and other magazines. He has also published eight books and does stand-up comedy. You can contact him at [email protected].