Walktober - Day Zero & What, Why, How

Today was one of those perfect early days of fall, with bright blue skies and sunshine and colored leaves just starting to fall. Tomorrow marks the start of October, and I'm taking on a new 'challenge' that involves... walking. Exciting, right? :)

It begins with a feeling of urgency to become more active. I work as a consultant which is basically a desk job, and unless I have meetings outside of the office, I pretty much sit on my ass (and stare at a screen) all day. Perhaps I've been indoctrinated by the 'sitting is the new smoking'-police that I'm starting to get worried now - but at least I don't have a standing desk (yet).

All my life I've never been a sporty kind of girl, and I tried to introduce exercise in my life in quite a few ways over the past decade or so... Here's a brief history of my failed attempts. In college, I joined the university gym and did some sporadic cardio. After graduation, I subscribed to a nearby fitness club with a friend, but instead of motivating each other to go, we often mutually agreed that today was simply not a good day to work out because of, well, most of the times because it was raining (also, the place was supercrowded and smelly). A few years ago, I attended Zumba classes for about a year which I quite liked, but then the course got cancelled. Ever since, I've been going out on runs on a very, very infrequent schedule which I also liked doing (even getting up at 6 AM to make some miles before work!) but somehow it turns out I'm not inclined to really pull through and make it a lasting habit.

However, one thing that I managed to improve throughout the past few years in terms of activeness is that I really started to enjoy walking. Walking to work instead of cycling, voluntarily skipping the bus or tram and just... move my feet. Even just going out for a walk without having somewhere to go! Crazy, I tell ya!

So... with the crisp fall month of October coming up, why not find out if it could work to introduce more walking as a low-key way to be active in everyday life and burn some more calories? The name 'walktober' is quite obvious and a quick Google search also showed a range of challenges and events taking place in cities from Portland to various locations in Australia... so yeah I realize I'm not entirely original :) But what the heck, let's do this thing! (Oh and by committing to this publicly, it's a lot harder for me to give up, ha-ha).

The Only Three and Supereasy Rules

• Walking is the default transportation mode. Other forms of transport are allowed, but cannot interfere with reaching The Goal.
• The Goal: reach an average of 10,000 steps per day by the end of the month.
• Monitor results and publish weekly updates.

Day Zero

Today, September 30th, was the first day I took my brand new Fitbit Charge wearable tracker thingy for a spin, and it was a perfectly average Wednesday to see how 'active' I am on a normal weekday. A brief outline of the day:

• Cycling the approximately 3 kilometers to work
• Short shopping round in the supermarket
• Work at the office, no external meetings (sitting down - I did play pool with my colleagues after lunch though!)
• Cycling the approximately 3 kilometers back home, including a quick stop at the post office to drop off a package
• Doing some chores around the house: laundry, watering my plants...
• No cooking because I had a second portion left from the pumpkin soup I made yesterday
• Writing this post (sitting down)
• Eat dinner, watching The Mindy Project and later on maybe watch a movie or read a book (sitting down)

See, perfectly average and boring. The result so far? My Fitbit tells me I set 4,686 steps, resulting in 3.35 kilometers, burned 1,701 calories and I climbed 8 stairs. Since a daily amount of 10,000 steps is apparently a good norm for an active lifestyle, it's clear that I'm still wayyyyy below that! But, frankly, I'm not disappointed and thought it would have been less.

Edit: by the end of the day, before going to bed, the number of steps for this day was 5,302.

Okay, enough rambling - time to start walking!