Good Morning,
I woke up thinking to myself, if I knew nothing about this girl and all the sudden she had a random goal of 75k steps to be completed by Monday, I would think "Boy, she is weird."
So I wanted to explain a little about how this pedometer came to be in my life as well as what I am working on through the Virgin Health Miles Program.
To start, if you are from the United States, you know there is an Obama Plan going into effect. With this plan everyone needs to have health insurance. Before this went into effect I nor my family had health insurance. My body was and still is not okay but I felt that I would rather have that extra $200 that would go towards my health insurance bi-weekly to myself and keep it to hold as savings or a little something extra to actually enjoy life a bit.
This year. if you do not have insurance there is a penalty that we have to pay, til this day I am not sure how it is charged, so although the penalty is nothing compared to the insurance premium I am actually paying, as a family we decided to get health insurance because I want to expand my family in the near future and I would like a doctor to check my lady parts and make sure everything is okay.
I like this health insurance plan that my company has because I feel that they really really want healthy and happy employees. At my company they have made a correlation that the better work environment that we have in the office the more successful and satisfied our customers will be with the service that we provide.
For example, one program through our Health Savings Account, the company sponsors $1,000. Of course you have to earn it, and it's through Virgin Pulse Health Miles a.k.a. my pedometer. They way that it works is that I walk a certain number of steps per day and at the end of the day I earn points based on the number of steps that I took that day.
Honestly, this program showed me how inactive I was. I would have about 3k steps when I started and the minimum goal that they had set up was 7K. So for a while I was not hitting target. but then I realized that when I would run about 5K I would log in about 7-8 steps. Also, that when I would attend a Zumba class, with one class I could make the 7K mark, easy.
As time went on I realized if I start my weekend, like for example a saturday morning with a 5k run or attended a Zumba class any steps I took after class were extra. Then I found myself making sure I reach the 12K (extra points) on the weekends when I know I can.
Then this winter challenge came along. I got an e-mail I think Sunday the 9th stating that in honor of the Winter Olympics they were going to have medals (Bronze, Silver, and Gold of course). Everyone who placed would receive a badge. Badges are when you reach an accomplishment mark or a milestone they are given. Some are very easy to get like you took your first 7k steps! Rock On! but after a while they become really exclusive. For example the 1 million step mark. I can't imagine getting that one anytime soon. Last but not least depending on the medal that you earn based on the number of steps you take, you will get extra health miles points!
So this is where I came up with needing to make the 75k mark. I need those 500 HealthMiles points. If I want to start visiting doctors and making sure I can afford the co-pay I have to go for the gold.
As of yesterday morning I needed 45,611 to get to gold by Monday, mind you yesterday was Saturday. My goal was to complete (2/5ths) of the steps on Saturday, (2/5ths) on Sunday and then (1/5th) steps on Monday since it was week day. Meaning on Saturday and Sunday do 18,245 steps and on Monday 9,123.
I think the highest # of steps I had ever taken in a single day was 16.5k. So I thought to myself this might be hard but very doable. Then for Monday 9k? I usually don't do that during the week because I am always so tired from work. and even if I walked around work during my lunch, I could do like 4k steps tops that would mean that I would have to go to the gym and be really tiered for work the next day. Excuses Excuses, but I wanted to make it to gold.
So I thought what if I got the gym and just walked.... literally just walked until I hit my goal for the day, then that would levitate, the amount of steps that I would need to take for Monday. That was the plan.
I know when I am on the tread mil for 1 hour I put in about 7-8k steps. So with that logic if I walked for 2.5 hours I would have my 19k steps ...because I rounded up, of course, I would have those steps easy and then I could got about my day and anything else would be extra.
From my previous post, it was noted that I did it. I had gotten the mark! Feeling great and then I looked at the time. I was still feeling good ......when I mean good I mean I was not feeling the pre-cramps leg twitch. I thought to myself Zumba starts in 15 mins, if I did Zumba that would be another 7k steps. I did not know if I could handle it but I made it to class. I bet the women behind me were like "This chick is not trying". I had to modify the movements today because I wanted to make sure I would be able to get through the class and not faint. It was a long hour, but I have a great instuctor that has an amazing playlist of music so she always makes it easier to get through the class. I got the 7k! Mind you it's just noon and I was already at the highest # of steps that I had taken since I joined the program in December.Then I proceeded to go home, took a shower and got dressed quickly because if I get too comfy I would knock out for 6 hours.
I went out and did some shopping, more like window shopping, and I kept checking my pedometer. by the end of the night I made the 34k mark! My heart melted with joy. I knew it was too much to soon because I was starting to feel a headache coming along but I ate a snack here, greasy food there and then I felt much better,
Drum Roll please!! I am 8.4k away from reaching the 75k mark! Yes! My plan is to sleep in a little and then head out to the gym get the 9k out and then celebrate with healthy grocery shopping for the week.
This was a long post but I really wanted to just clarify why these steps are so important to me. I feel much better as a person and let me tell you it was easy to make this 20k mark and unbelievably easy to continue this on a daily basis so I will.
You have to see me on the days that I don't hit the 7k mark. On these days I find myself so upset and depressed, and I blame it on everything else, but it really is that deep down I know I failed myself by not dedicating a 20-45 min walk to get to the goal number.
So I will continue to rack up these steps and like Darren Hardy emphasizes it's the little things we do today that cause a compound effect for great results in the future.
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