OFF THE CLOCK...

...so to speak.  Louis and I left for our "Stay-cation" Thursday morning and began our  "Perfect Three Days in Denver" with a session at the Denver Temple.  From there it was lunch, shopping in Cherry Creek, checking into our hotel then walking the 16th Street Mall.  It was after we went back to the hotel that I discovered I hadn't put on my pedometer that morning before we left the house.

I was bummed!  I had worked really hard to go almost two weeks with at least 10,000 steps every day.  The pedometer I have has a rolling seven day data keeper, and I like every day to register that I have reached my minimum goal, at least.

Oh, well.  And then suddenly I felt free as a bird!  I think I reallly needed to walk some more that day to get to the minimum10,000 steps, but without  any measurement I didn't feel pressed to leave the hotel room again and walk some more.  Instead Louis and I watched a couple of movies and called it a night.

I determined that I could do this--be without step measurement.  Is all I had to do was walk as much as possible during our activities for the next two days, eat sparingly and not worry about it.  Didn't happen.  Oh, I walked all right.  Louis was sure it was MORE than 10,000 steps (he isn't used to walking as much as I am).  But it was the eating:  Casa Bonita, The Cheesecake Factory, Blondie at the end of our meal at Applebee's plus snacks, hot breakfast both days at the hotel, soda pop--you name it, I ingested it.

Saturday morning Louis steered me into Sports Authority and bought me a new pedometer that doesn't automatically change back to zero every night at midnight.  It just keeps on recording until the user presses the button twice.  I think Louis was sick of hearing me moan and groan when I have forgotten to put on my pedometer.  And that has been more than a couple of times in the past several weeks.  What is wrong with me?!

Anyway, I don't think the pedometer is as accurate as the one I already had.  Just busy-boding around yesterday to finish out our "stay-cation" the readout registered over 8,500 steps.  So, I wore them both this morning on my walk.  The walk itself was step to step accurate, but as the day wore on the new pedometer registered a step even when I wasn't really doing any walking.  I had reached 10,000 steps in no time.  Plus it fits onto my belt under my outermost piece of clothing.  Awkward, to say the least, and uncomfortable digging into my waist.

So, though I thought NO measurement was liberating, in the long run--it wasn't.  I gave myself WAAAAY too much latitude.

Back to the stricter regimen I outlined for my optimum "fit and feel-good" so my body works better.  After all, if I'm going to live FOREVER as some of you think, I want to be limber while I'm going off into the future.