I'd walk 10,000 ... steps

My walking mantra, to which I keep pace, is "The more I walk, the more I can walk!" repeated indefinitely.

It's true - the more I walk, the greater distance I can walk. And the more often I walk, the more I feel like walking. And the longer I walk, the longer I want to walk.

It's true about everything, I suspect. Maybe it's part of our structure, to enjoy things more and more, the more we do them.

Little kids love an oft-seen TV show character, or a toy, or a game - with great abandon. Or they come to love soccer or football or dance. Or fishing or gossip I suppose or reading or reading the same book over and over.

For us, who are grown out of those things, I think we can use this tendency of our minds to do more and more of something to our advantage.

Such as writing a blog post. The more I do that, the more I like it. And if I like the idea of it but can't quite get down to it, the best thing for me to do is to do it. Next time will be easier, and more satisfying.

But back to walking. Walking is good. Right now several of us are working toward walking 10,000 steps a day, as measured by a pedometer of one sort or another. It's getting easier and easier, not just because of building more muscles, either. It's getting mentally easier and easier.

Here are some examples of when I'm remembering to get a few extra steps in:

When I'm on hold.
When I'm on the phone any time.
When I'm catching the news on TV.
When I'm listening to a CD.

And then there are the things that I'm getting done as I look for excuses to get some extra steps in, so I have a good report, 10,000 or above, at the end of the day. All of them of course involve walking:

Tossing out papers. 
Collecting laundry.
Weeding the garden.
Calling someone I've been putting off talking to.
Calling someone instead of texting them.

(If you'd like to be part of our accountability group, where we report on our steps each day, please join us on Our 10,000 Club on Facebook. It's an open group and all are welcome. Tell a friend.)

Here's an example of how those 10,000 steps mean even more steps.

Our friend TSP bought herself a pedometer and was striving to do her 10,000 steps. (It does feel like a challenge in the beginning!) But now she's doing 14,000, 22,000+ the other day in fact.

Just to put that in perspective, a pedometer measures steps and it takes 2 paces to make a step. Roman soldiers walked 1000 paces or mille passus. From that we get the word mile. A mile is 1000 paces or 2000 steps. So when she walked 22,000 steps the other day, it was about 11 miles! It's a pretty accurate measure because Roman soldiers, while professional walkers, were also a lot smaller than we are and their paces were likely no longer than ours.

And when we walk 10,000 steps, it's 5 miles, which is more than most people think they can walk!

So join us. The more we walk, the more we can walk, and want to walk, and will walk.