The Pedometer Challenge
February 23, 2008
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For Christmas I gave pedometers, as part of their presents, to four people at work. Included were some inspiring articles about walking, and some challenges with “really bad” prizes. The challenges were, 1) who could do the most steps in one week, 2) who could do the most steps in one week, and 3) who had the greatest percentage improvement. I thought if I set up a friendly competition, it would be encouraging.
All four of the recipients are carrying more weight than they are happy with, and two have recently been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Three are women and one is a guy, who has one of the recent diagnoses for diabetes. The group opened the presents at the same time in the department office.
The guy said, “S***, now Vera [wife] is going to make me go walking and do something about the diabetes”. My immediate thought was, “Well the next present I give you is going to be donuts”.
The three “girls” really got into it, after they had put in the batteries and set up the calibration. Of course nobody read the instructions, so it took a while to set them up. At one point, Carol wailed, “I’m too tall”. She was trying to enter her height as the stride length. The pedometers do not go up to a 5 ft 10 inch stride! When the pedometers were set, the girls were doing as many errands as they could think of, and comparing numbers of steps. They were all over the department.
As you might anticipate, the initial enthusiasm wore off. However, the girls are still using the pedometers some of the time, and one of them was inspired to join the gym. We never did bother with the challenges.
I got one for myself, but unfortunately lost mine yesterday, while walking the dog. I was in a park with narrow paths between chest high sagebrush and it must have got snagged. Now it is snowing so even if I find it, I think it may be ruined. The pedometers I gave were Omron HJ-112 Digital Premium Pedometers.
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