100 steps a minute

I came along an article yesterday that I thought would be interesting to share: Strive for 100 steps a minute. Heath knows that I am embarking on a healthier lifestyle and he knows that I am blogging about it. I am not sure that he reads it though, which is just as well, because I blog about all my frustrations with him in my other blog: WobegonRabbit:My Ramblings, which can be accessed through this blog. Heath and I were discussing my treadmill use on Tuesday. He likes to kid around and told me that I was not going fast enough and maybe my short legs were holding me up and that he would walk faster-his legs are not that much longer than mine. His comments got me to thinking that maybe I am not going fast enough. I strive for 2.5-3.0 mph at the moment, with the majority of my time between 2.8-3.0. I plan to work on becoming faster in addition to adding time.

Right now, I am up to 23 minutes on the treadmill. Once I am at 30 minutes, I plan to focus solely on speed and incline. I do focus somewhat on speed, I have increase the amount of time I spend at 2.8-3.0mph significantly and only spend a warm up minute at 2.0 (to adjust everything-volume of TV/music, phone and remote in the cubbies, etc) and 2.5 for 3 minutes in the beginning and 1 minute at the end. So my thoughts were to search the Internet to see if there were guidelines to how fast one should walk. Much to my surprise, the next morning-one of Yahoo's teasers was referencing this article.

So, apparently one should be walking 100 steps a minute, which since 30 minutes of activity is advised, one should be walking 3000 steps in 30 minutes. That calculates to 1.5 miles in 30 minutes or 3.0mph. Apparently I am only doing that about 5-7 minutes of my time, so I need to speed it up. At the moment, when walking 3.0mph, I feel as though I am going to fall off and I have vision of lying unconscious on the floor. I hold on for dear life onto the side rails or the crosswalk arms. The article does recommend starting off slowly at 1000 steps for 10 minutes, which I shall try tonight.

One important note is that the study at San Diego State University was done in healthy young adults, not those who are obese or overweight. I think my decision to start slowly was advisable and one I would make to all my patients. If not because of the dangerousness of doing activity your body is unable to handle, but that if it is too hard in the beginning, then one is likely to give up and not want to continue. The days, I have not walked have been due to lack of sleep (on night float) and lack of time (the day trip to Myrtle Beach). My excuse has never been not wanting to walk on the treadmill because I did not enjoy it or I felt it was too difficult.

Of note, I have not read the actual study-my library does not have access to it. I plan to read it when it comes available an make comments as necessary.

Day Ten

Today was not a good day. An incident happened on night float that caused me to spend the whole day crying and I barely got any sleep. I decided to skip the treadmill after my doctor's appointment and try to sleep-it didn't work. I probably should have worked out. I only walked 6441 steps at work. My doctor told me that she was proud of the healthy eating and the exercise and told me not to get too down about work-residency is nothing like the real world. Last night on night float, I had a salad from home, Frito's, soda, and an ice cream bar. I also had breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, and hash browns. For dinner, I had cereal and coffee.

Step to it

I usually have a pedometer on me, but I rarely look at the number anymore. It has been shown that pedometers increase physical activity. According to a review in JAMA, "use of a pedometer is associated with significant increases in physical activity and significant decreases in body mass index and blood pressure." Perhaps, I should be looking at the numbers more closely. I always like to challenge myself. The first few days, I would surely just try to beat my day before. Despite working in a small clinic, I am sure I can find more ways to add steps in, like taking multiple trips to the workroom from my office.

The daily goal for an average person is 10,000 steps (which is around 5 miles). Of course, one can not be expected to start off walking 10,000 steps. A person gradually works their way up. It can be surprising how high your number can be to begin with though. I remember reading a study in medical school that looked at the physical activity of female factory workers. They labeled their amount of physical activity high and the researchers thought the women had not perceived the amount of activity correctly. The women were given pedometers and when the researchers were amazed to find that the women were actually walking several miles a day.

I think I will start wearing a pedometer and determine my average daily walking distance. In addition, I will look for ways to increase it.

ref:JAMA. 2007;298(19):2296-2304.