I imagine my loyal readers are anxious to hear how my pedometer regimen is going, if only so they too can say, “Why do I have to exercise? I already walk!”
I imagine a lot of things, out on my walks. There’s not much else to do.
A short while ago, I wrote about how I was getting myself a pedometer, because I needed a new device to stare at as I’m walking all the time. According to basically everything I’ve read, I’m supposed to get in 10,000 steps every day, which is a lot of steps. Well, actually, that depends. Because when I walk to my regular shul, which is about six minutes away, I’m like, “That’s a thousand steps! I just have to walk to shul and home five times a day!” Which is great if I’m Muslim, but I’m not. Plus I usually daven Mincha and Maariv together, so that’s only twice a day. So I have to add other outings. But then when I walk around a store for a full half hour, it’s like, “Okay, how was that only 500 steps?” And I have to tell you—I’ve been shopping pretty inefficiently.
In fact, before I got a pedometer, I didn’t understand how I took so few steps every day, because I do housework—am I not taking steps while I do that? Though now that I started carrying around a pedometer that tells me how many steps I’m taking, it turns out that most of my chores are done standing still, apparently.
Maybe I should wear it on my arm.
And yes, this is a more advanced device into which, before I started the first day, I had to program in my weight so it could calculate how many calories I generally burn by walking. Because apparently, the heavier you are, the more calories you burn with each step. People make fun of you because when you walk up a hill, they have to hear you fighting for your life, but you’re doing way more exercise than they are, with their light little bodies. You’re actively losing weight here. What are they doing?
Basically, when it comes to trying to lose weight by walking, the bigger you are the more weight you lose. So why on earth am I trying to lose weight, again? So that I’ll lose less weight by doing the same amount of exercise? That’s an efficient use of my time.
And to help the device calculate distance, I also had to program in my gait. I don’t know how to measure my own gait short of stepping on an ink pad and determining the distance between footprints; which is definitely worth the effort, since the mileage count is not accurate anyway.
On the other hand, the very concept of a pedometer feels like cheating, because who says walking is even an exercise? The pedometer people? The pedometer says I’m burning calories, but it could just be making it up, you know? Just from the fact that I could totally forget about the pedometer, and then halfway through the day I could come across it and say, “Hey! I’ve been exercising all day by accident!” You can’t say that about any other exercise. Like you check your pocket at the end of the day, and it turns out you already did 60 pushups, and you didn’t even realize!
“How do you like that?!”
But the pedometer people say it is. Though I think it’s like a cult. Because people who do a lot of walking are constantly asking you to join them.
“Can we walk?”
“I’m driving.”
“No, but we can both walk!”
“Or I can give you a ride. Stop trying to convert me.”
I’m also not sure if I’m supposed to walk 10,000 steps, or 10,000 steps more than I normally would walk. So the first couple of days after I got the pedometer, I didn’t do any extra walking. You call it procrastination, but I called it science. My excuse was that I was trying to get a baseline of what I normally do. Anyway, my baseline was that on most days I walk about 3,000 steps. I’m a third of the way there! I just have to mosey around my house three times as much! Cleaning, mostly. I just need three times as much mess to clean! Or a much narrower broom. Or a bigger house.
But I’ve slowly been figuring things out. (Get it? Slowly.)
Here are the tips, in case you need them: For one thing, I’ve been walking to a shul that’s farther away. That way, I get more points. It’s called schar halicha—three steps back, three steps forward. Every little thing counts. Unfortunately, my pedometer doesn’t count anything less than nine steps because it assumes that you “accidentally” just dropped your pedometer across the room. So I have to add in some shukkeling. Literally, this whole experience is making me a better Yid. Case in point, ever since I got a pedometer, I’ve been dancing more at simchas. And also not complaining about that dance where you’re just walking in a circle forever, because, “Hey, I’m walking!” And you get more steps in the outer circle. The inner circles are a lot of picking your feet up and putting them down but not actually moving anywhere. Point is, I thought I wouldn’t get my steps in this evening because I had a simcha, but I forgot about the dancing! I usually walk to Mincha-Maariv, and tonight it’s in the hall’s halls, but hey, can I walk down the aisle with you guys?
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]
