One Little Word: February 2017

This is my third year participating in Ali Edwards’ One Little Word workshop. My 2017 word is “intention.” All of my OLW posts are here.

This month was all about picking one thing and doing it every day. I considered a few different things — last year I worked on going to bed by 11:00 every night — and finally decided to aim for 10,000 steps on my Fitbit each day. I wanted something that was good for me but not too easy, something that required me to act with intention, and this goal definitely fit that bill.

I got at least 10,000 steps on 22 of 28 days in February. I missed 3 days for miscellaneous reasons, and 3 days when I was sick last week and not feeling up to a walk or run. My lowest day was last Tuesday — my sickest day — at 4,126 steps. My best day was February 18 with 17,332 steps. My average for February (not counting today since it’s not over yet) was 10,700.

Here’s what I learned:

• With my lifestyle, crossing the 10,000 step mark is definitely achievable on any given day, but often requires an intentional effort to get there.
• Sometimes “effort” means walking on the treadmill for a half hour in the evening because it’s 9:30 and I’m still short 3,000 steps. Sometimes it means jogging in place as I brush my teeth to get those last 500 in.
• On weekdays, there is a significant correlation between what I’ve got on my schedule at work and how easy it is to get my steps. I knew this already, but tracking things more closely definitely made it hit home. On days when I don’t have many meetings or scheduled activities and am just sitting at my desk, 5:00 rolls around and I haven’t even cracked 3,000.
• On weekends, it’s a lot easier to get 10,000 — sometimes I get there even without a dedicated run or walk, just because our plans kept us moving and active all day.
• If I go for a run, making 10,000 for the day is pretty easy. This is obvious. If I go to Orange Theory, making 10,000 can still take a bit of effort. OTF is a great workout, but since there’s only ~25 minutes of walking/running and the rest is strength/rowing, it doesn’t log as many steps as you’d think.

Overall I’m glad I set this goal and I think it was a pretty successful month. But at the same time, I recognize that 10,000 is a pretty arbitrary number. It doesn’t really make sense for me to continue trying to get 10,000 every single day…but I don’t want to just forget about this month entirely. I think this would be a good goal to repeat a couple times each year, because it definitely helped me refocus on being active and moving my body. Those are things I want to continue.