March Goal Progress: Week 1 Check In

Monday means it’s time to check in for my monthly goal… but wait! I never yet posted about what my March goal was, even though I had it in my head and have been working toward achieving it. Fortunately, it doesn’t require much explanation: my March goal is to log 100,000 steps per week (or an average of 14,286 steps per day). I’ll be tallying on a Monday to Sunday basis, so the total is more important than the average. However, I honestly don’t hit 10,000 steps a day now, so this is quite a challenge to consistently exceed that by nearly 50%!

Last week was rather crazy for a lot of reasons. I spent Monday and Tuesday nights at work until 9pm or later, prepping for a big work decision on Thursday. Wednesday night I got out a bit earlier, but had a bunch of errands to run before my trip since I had forgotten to bring sunglasses and I also needed to buy more shampoo/conditioner to leave in Dallas. (I used to just use the hotel stuff but found that my hair looked a lot nicer if I upgraded… you know, to the super ritzy Herbal Essences.) Thursday I was busy getting sick from sushi food poisoning, and Friday I was too tired to move after the aforementioned food poisoning. So that left Saturday and Sunday for getting steps in, but Saturday was a travel day (3.5 hours sitting on a plane doesn’t help me get steps) and Sunday was a ski day (I know, poor baby… but skiing does not = steps). Grand total steps for the week?

This week, though, I’m hoping I won’t have all those other things getting in my way… and I feel like I have a score to settle. What’s that I read in This Is Your Brain On Sports – underdogs are more motivated to grit it out and get it done? I definitely see that – I failed so miserably last week that I feel like it will be a complete embarrassment if I don’t crush my goal this week.

So how am I stacking the deck to succeed this week? A few strategies:

1. Avoiding sitting at the airport while waiting for flights, and instead putting my stuff down in a less crowded area and pacing back and forth in front of it. I’ve always been surprised how few steps I get on travel days, but today I learned that if I pull my rollerboard with my Fitbit hand (which I usually do), those steps aren’t counted by the device. Lame! It will be hard for me to change how I walk with all my stuff but I’m hoping that putting it all down and then doing some extra walking will help.
2. On a related note: using my Bluetooth headset to walk and talk whenever I need to talk on the phone. I get some strange looks because I know it looks like I’m talking to myself, but surely in this hyperconnected day and age people eventually figure it out? (Or, more likely, don’t actually care.)
3. Taking a class tonight that had running in it, and doing the same tomorrow. I love my weight lifting and pilates classes, but they just don’t get the same step counts as running classes! I’m still taking those on Wednesday and Friday, but planning to supplement with extra running outside of class.
4. Refusing to circle the parking lot hoping for a miraculously close space and instead just parking as quickly as possible… which is a good five minute walk away from the office. Our office parking lot is big! (The better to get steps in.)
5. Finally, also at the office: making it a point to get up and get water every time I even think about doing so, rather than doing the dumb thing where I think “oh, I’ll just finish this slide” and then 45 minutes later I’m ridiculously thirsty and my butt hasn’t moved.

Most of my strategies are based on the workweek, so I’ll be interested to see how I do when I get home this weekend. As I mentioned about last week, skiing doesn’t get me many steps, so I’ll probably need to do some just-for-the-step-count walks to boost my total.

So to ignore last week’s dismal finish and summarize this week’s start (hey, it’s my blog, I can do that if I want to): 16,600 steps down; 83,400 to go. I’m feeling good about this goal!