One Month Down … 11 to go..

I should really say 313,614 steps down 5,686,386 steps to go!!

So as you can see from the picture I have a lot of things to be proud of this month, and a few to work on. Yes, I didn’t achieve my planned 11,000 step average but coming in at 10,000 steps is still a great achievement. Consider this, my 4 rest days where I didn’t do anything were about 3,500 steps average. If you take this as a better gauge of my average steps without doing workouts this means that I would have only had about 108,000 steps normally and it would have taken me until near the end of March to walk the number of steps that I completed this month.

Moving forward this month I am planning to try and average about 12,000 plus steps a day. This is my stage wise approach to trying to get my average step count in the 18,000 to 20,000 step range for summer to make up for these first few months. Note: 6 million steps is an average of 16,000+ a day for the year. One rule that I am going to make for myself for this month is to only take one “rest day” a week and all rest days need to be at least 6,000 steps.

As always I welcome people’s comments and encouragement. Thank you to my new WordPress Followers, and thank you to all my Facebook / Twitter people that come to read my posts. I ask of people to please take time to share / re-tweet my blog to your friends and ask them to do the same to help me build a bigger following and eventually help others in their own life journeys.

Thanks Rob

Change…

2016 is certainly becoming a year of change. First this challenge to myself and all the steps I am taking and now also changing jobs.

Before I get into some thought though I want to acknowledge my first official followers on WordPress. So Thank you to Tony and Joelle for following me. I ask people that read my posts from Facebook or Twitter to also check out some of their great posts.

http://www.tonyscoastalwalk.co.uk www.walkwithjoelle.com

I think this quote that is in the first picture is probably the way that I felt when I initially decided to do this challenge. 6 weeks ago I was at the point in my life where my depressive demons were certainly pushing me. Also the depression over what I had gone through with surgery and now not loosing weight was very heavy on my mind. I might not be seeing the weight loss but I am certainly seeing the change in my overall activity level. If you told me 4 months ago that I would be walking nearly 4 miles every day as exercise I might have told you that you were crazy and thinking of the wrong man.

I might have also thought you were crazy if you said that I would be leaving a job that I have been at for 13 + years. But I am….After 13 + years 33 % of my entire life to date I have worked for the same mental health agency in West Seneca NY. Now I only have 5 days left before starting over fresh in another area of Occupational Therapy. This area I have not been involved in since my first professional job as an Occupational Therapist back in 2000-2001. Needless to say the butterflies and thoughts race through my head daily. But as they say change is inevitable……

Weekly update / Followers..

Well looking back over the last couple of weeks I would say I am doing about 50% with my challenge. Some of you whom are reading might say that is very low considering all the steps I have taken. But part of what I set out to do with this challenge and blog was to… “blog and gain some followers and possibly help other people”. So far I am failing on the regular blogging and getting followers. My posts have been erratic and some might say lack quality.

So coming up on the final week of January, I have three goals this week. #1 is to end the month strong to ensure I get my average step count up closer to 11,000 per day. (I am only at 9,700 average) #2 is to try and spend more time trying to gain followers. #3 is to do at least 3 quality posts during the week.

So for those whom like numbers here are my step counts..

Total Steps to date – 233,552 Average steps 9,731 3.89% of Challenge complete

1/1/2016	9,821
1/2/2016	12,875
1/3/2016	9,201
1/4/2016	12,574
1/5/2016	10,354
1/6/2016	8,898
1/7/2016	12,029
1/8/2016	7,650
1/9/2016	8,862
1/10/2016	2,704
1/11/2016	6,067
1/12/2016	13,934
1/13/2016	12,574
1/14/2016	13,046
1/15/2016	11,245
1/16/2016	11,290
1/17/2016	3,962
1/18/2016	3,151
1/19/2016	12,601
1/20/2016	11,405
1/21/2016	10,277
1/22/2016	11,338
1/23/2016	7,694
1/24/2016	10,000+… day not over yet..

As always thanks for reading… Rob

Determination..

Despite having a bad weekend of walking, I have had DETERMINATION. This picture was determination yesterday when I walked 2 miles in lake effect snow. I actually walked in the snow earlier in the day for a mile then this picture later at 8pm.

I have rebounded nicely from the weekend low step counts to put up three 12,000+ step days. Determination is something that at times might waver but true determination will conquer. Although I am only 14 days into this challenge I believe in my determination and believe I can succeed. Determination has also helped me loose 7 lbs in the first 13 days of the year.

What do you need more DETERMINATION to do?? Think about it, I would love to hear your comments..

Rob

Weekly Update…

Well I haven’t posted the last couple of days as I have been very preoccupied with thought. I hope people have been doing well with keeping their new years resolutions. I have been preoccupied because after 14 years at the same place of employment I was offered a job somewhere else. I am seriously thinking of changing jobs as this is an amazing offer. It has been VERY stressful trying to think of all the PROS and CONS to make a decision. This has been coupled with some increased foot pain, worry about my wife whom is having surgery in a little more then a week, and all the other things life throws at us. As such, my step count will has completely sucked the last few days and put me farther behind my goal. Today has been a rest day that has been under 5,000 steps. Now the weather is getting bad this week too… ugh.

So for those of you who like number and wanting to know where I am, here is all the info for the fist 9 days of this challenge.

Jan 1 – 9,821
Jan 2 – 12,875
Jan 3 – 9,201
Jan 4 – 12,574
Jan 5 – 10,354
Jan 6 – 8,898
Jan 7 – 12,029
Jan 8 – 7,650
Jan 9 – 8,862
Total – 92,264 / Average 10,252
% of 6 Million Goal 1.54%

I truly hope that this slowdown of this weekend I can recover from during the week. To all my Munzee friends remember about the special double points next weekend. I hope everyone has a good week!!!

Thanks for reading.

Rob

Step Counts Jan 1-2

Well the first two days of this challenge has been cold but I braved it and did some walking around town vs going to the gym. The picture is of the one walking path by my home that will be getting lots of use with this challenge. I was the first person to walk on it in the snow today. I put up some pretty good step numbers by going for a walk to get a few Geocaches that I have not gotten before.

Jan 1st – 9,821 steps – Geocaches GC67AD3, GC62A2C
Jan 2nd – 12,875 steps – Geocaches GC50PYK, GC3XH8G

I haven’t done much Geocaching the last couple of years but think that getting back into the habit a little more will be extremely helpful at keeping my walks varied.

Hope everyone has a good first weekend of the new year and has done something fun.

Thanks for reading.

Rob

Happy New Year – My Resolution Challenge

Well 2016 is now officially here!!! Although this blog is in it’s infancy I am proud of myself. I hope everyone that stops by and views this page has a happy and healthy new year. For those whom are looking for the first time or people whom are returning to view I say “Welcome”. For those wondering what this blog is about it is simple:

I am planning to walk “6 Million Steps in 2016”.

This may not seem like much but it actually is for the normal American as we only average about 5,ooo a day or 2 million a year. The only people whom walk 6 million steps a year are those people whom run / walk about 4+ miles on a regular basis multiple days per week and have active jobs. So for someone like myself this is will be a huge challenge to triple my activity level. (For the math geeks it is about 16,500 steps per day) By doing this I hope help myself with my weight issues

So what’s the plan you ask??

Well the general plan is to spend some more time at the gym, and doing a few different GPS games that I partake in. They are Munzee, Geocaching, and Flagstack. The biggest thing will just be the time and doing things like walking around the mall a few times, having my wife drop me off somewhere and walking home, and maximizing every opportunity I can to get steps in.

This last five days I have been trying to average 7,500 plus steps a day to prepare to start this challenge today. I was able to succeed with this very well, despite cold weather by going to the gym and doing some Munzee activities.

December 27th – 9,153
December 28th – 8,515
December 29th – 12,840
December 30th – 8,717
December 31st – 7411

This was an average step count of 9,327 per day for the last 5 days.

So the plan is that over the month of January to average about 11-12 thousand steps per day and each month of the year continue to bump the average up until I am averaging 17,000 steps a day in the summer.

My Writing Plan

During the week Monday through Friday I will only be sharing small little posts of step counts or small stories of the day. On Saturday’s I will do a re-cap of the week, goals, step count, etc.

Join Me..

I ask you to join me on this journey. However you wish to join is up to you… Follow me, walk your own journey, share your own resolutions, share your life events, etc.

Thank You for reading and I hope to get to know some people better.

Ready to Start… Sharing

It has been nearly a week since I started to plan for this adventure of “6 Million Steps in 2016”. I now believe I am ready to share this Blog with Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the world. I also think I am set to start actually writing daily, and sharing a little more of my plan and story.

I have scrapped my S-Gear Health fitness tracker and purchased and linked a new Garmin Vivofit activity tracker to my phone. Re-setup my My Fitness Pal account, and linked both to my Achievement.com profile. I am planning on getting some new shoes this week and believe I am all set to start. This week I am off work and plan to try and get 7500 plus steps a day. Hopefully by doing this prep this week, and being able to make a conscious focused effort on sharing this week I will be set to gain momentum starting Friday to start 2016 strong.

Why did I pick “6 Million Steps”? Well based on my previous efforts to track steps with my Fitbit and S-Gear Health I seem to average about 3500 to 5000 steps a day when not doing a workout. According to About.com that is fairly average: “A study published in 2010 of over 1000 Americans found an average of 5117 steps overall, with men only slightly ahead of women at 5340 steps compared with 4912 steps.” This would make the average American walk just under 2 Million steps in a year. My thought was to try and truly push myself to do something “Amazing”. So given that it is 2016 I figured on “6 Million Steps in 2016”.

This breaks down to an average of 16,400 steps per day to achieve my challenge!! 300% of the normal average American!!!