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| Walking around my neighbourhood - March 2012 |
Living in Montreal means I walk... a lot. I don't own a car and I'm lucky enough to live where I can easily walk to work. So, when I heard that we need to walk 10,000 steps a day to maintain good health, I started to wonder what it would take for me to achieve that in my day-to-day routine. How many steps was I walking? Earlier this month I borrowed a pedometer from a friend to find out.
Every weekday, I try to walk both to and from work. If I'm running late in the morning or it's a long day at the office, I only walk one way. Unfortunately, that was not enough to achieve 10,000 steps. Walking one way, plus normal walking around the office and to/from the metro only got me to around 7,000 steps. Not walking to/from work at all was dismal - only around 3,500 steps. I finally achieved the goal when I walked to and from work, plus took a short walk to have lunch with a friend. According to Google maps, that's 5.7km (around 3.5 miles), plus whatever I walked around the office. This is definitely inspiring me to take a break and go for a walk at lunch.
On the weekend, I only measured my steps when I went somewhere. Unfortunately, that usually involved taking the metro which did a great job of shaking the pedometer and inflating the count. Still, I think a trip to Jean-Talon market was a respectable 1,500 steps because I love to wander around the entire market. Going shopping in the underground city must be nearly double that, since I usually get lost down there.
I must say that Mother Nature was a great help with this experiment. We had the most beautiful weather anyone could remember. For about a week and a half we had sunshine and the temperatures rose up to 26C! Even though it has cooled down, I am not complaining. It was a mild winter and it's still an early Spring. Now that I know what it takes to walk 10,000 steps a day, I will be sure to have my walking shoes/sandals on every day this summer!
