Counting steps - three months in

I am pleased to be able to say that I have kept up my step counting for three months and I have worked out I think how to meet the 10,000 a day target in my own circumstances.

I used the first month to understand my baseline level of steps. Because I work from home this was shockingly low: about 2500 a day if all I do is work in my office and wander round the house. However, by dint of a few walks around the local streets and a decision already taken to go out walking in the country twice a week rather than our usual once, it was possible to reach an average of 9,000 steps a day by the end of January.

February involved much more work in other locations, mainly London, and now it was much easier to meet the 10,000 target on individual days. I followed obvious tactics like getting off the tube one, or preferably two stops, before my destination, walking down stairs and escalators (walking up can wait for now!), and parking further away from my destination when in the car. The new philosophy is essentially that "further away is better"- obvious, but it is a real mental shift from the way I and probably most people previously operated. February's daily average was 9,500.

March involved continuing these strategies and yielded a daily average of 10,050. The only extra thing I did was to try to increase the daily minimum to 5,000. This was not completely successful, but at least the proportion of sub-5,000 days went down. So far in April, I have managed at least 5,500 steps every day. I hope to continue to keep pushing this up.

It has been quite satisfying and I think I have avoided becoming obsessive (I would accept "mindful"). I feel a bit fitter and I did lose a few pounds initially. They have crept back though.

My personal conclusions so far:

• Get a good, simple reliable pedometer.
• Establish the baseline, so you know what you have to change.
• Move to a "Further is better" philosophy to replace the previous "economy of effort" one.
• Try to gradually increase the minimum.

Walking the Tube

There was an interesting article in the London Evening Standard yesterday entitled "Walk the the tube with a step-by-step map". It reported the findings of a study organised by the health insurer PruHealth to establish how far apart in terms of steps are central London tube stations. Volunteers armed with pedometers recorded the number of steps they took and averages have been recorded on a tube map.

The message of course was that walking instead of taking the tube - or getting off a stop early - is an excellent way to help meet the recommended 10,000 steps a day target. And if you don't have a pedometer, forget it or don't want to wear it one day, you can still know how many steps you have taken.

Standard readers posted many supportive comments, although one or two wags noted that walking the tube was potentially hazardous as there might be trains on the lines.

The original map is on PruHealth's website (in the press releases section).

Counting steps - initial experiences

Although I go out walking pretty much every week and more often when possible, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that I am steadily becoming less fit. A combination of my basically sedentary lifestyle and increasing age seem to be to blame.

For the new year I have resolved to aim to get out twice a week (successfully implemented so far) and to begin to use step counting to drive further improvements. The initial two weeks of step counting have been very illuminating.

All the advice is that you need to aim for 10,000 steps a day. On days when I don't go out for a walk, my default level is between 2000 and 3500, depending on what I am up to. So it is pretty obvious that a reasonably major change in behaviour (a step change!) is going to be necessary. I knew it would be bad, but I hadn't realised quite how bad.

On the other hand, 2000 steps equates to a mile walk, so simply looking for opportunities to walk rather than using the car or public transport or a daily couple of miles around the local neighbourhood will fairly easily double the default level.

With this sort of tactic, plus going on proper walks twice a week I am averaging around 9,000 steps a day so far which I quite encouraging.

I have also learned some important things about my pedometer. It has three basic flaws - which in effect reveal the critical criteria for buying a pedometer:

• It occasionally resets to zero, presumably because the reset button comes under pressure, or is touched accidentally.
• The count is not consistent: five mile walks have ranged between 9,000 and 11,000 steps.
• The waist band clip is not tight enough, so it sometimes falls off.

A little belated market research has revealed that the Yamax digiwalker SW 201 is widely regarded as the most accurate on the market, and it comes with a flip case, so the reset button is covered. It also has a security cord, so it can't fall off. And best of all, all it does is count steps, it does not seek to measure distance, count calories or anything else at all. I have ordered one pronto.