Back in February, we thought it would be helpful to get an idea of just how much physical activity we were getting on a daily basis at work and at home. As of this weekend, I completed 6 months of data collection and figure I can stop wearing a pedometer for awhile.
As a reminder, most literature suggests you try to get to 10,000 steps/day, which is approximately 5 mi of walking. We were able to achieve that on some days, but generally speaking, we were below that on average. Still, part of the reason to do this in the first place is to know just how much walking you’re doing and whether you’re even close to where you “should” be.
I should note that Brooke wore hers through mid-June and then switched off to an Android app that allows you to keep track of calorie intake. Between March and mid-June, her average number of steps was 6,388.7 each day. These charts only reflect data collected on me (my “global” average for the 6 months was 7,078.7 steps/day).
I separated out the data by month to help paint a clear picture of where that “7,078.7” comes from. You’ll see that my activity level was a little less in the colder months of the year, while activity increased during the warmer months of the year. I haven’t subdivided it all out, but my activity on weekends varied widely, where some days I’d be lucky to hit 4000 steps (yay, couch and TV days!) and others I’d clear 12,000 steps (mowing, working outside, going to the park, etc).
Case-in-point, my “most active” day was August 24th, with 15,631 steps. On that day, we were in Minnesota and visited the Mall of America…twice.
Overall, I’m glad the data suggest that I’m “trending upwards” on my walking each month, though I’m sure it will just go down again as it gets colder. My monthly average is probably accurate for a given year. While 10,000 steps/day is ideal, I can’t say I’m all that disappointed with 7,000 steps/day as a daily average.
Though, it would have been interesting to wear a pedometer back when I was spending 2 hrs each week mowing the lawn up in Iowa…
Note: We were pretty busy last month with a variety of things, so sorry we haven’t posted anything since, uh, early September! Got more on the way. 🙂