4 Benefits to Wearing a Pedometer at Home

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Many experts have touted the perks of putting on a pedometer for leaving the house and hitting the workplace, but what about us work-at-home types? Check out these compelling reasons to clip one on for health, happiness, and peace of mind.

The Obvious: Exercise

Just so that we can get this out of the way, I’d like to remind you that the #1 reason for wearing a pedometer is to get in some much-needed physical activity. As a blogger, I can sit for hours at a time, moving little more than my fingers and the arm muscle used to put a cup of coffee to my lips. This is clearly bad for my overall physique, which is currently trying to get back into shape after my last baby was born. Set a step goal for your typical day, and try your best to meet (or even exceed) it. Just 5,000 steps can be the difference between suffering from Blogger Butt and feeling fine.

Spend More Time with the Kids

A mom who sits at her desk is also one who is (sort of) ignoring her kids. While I don’t tune them out completely, I have been known to mutter the random “Uh-huh” or “Sure, sweetie” without ever turning my eyes from my assignment. This is not only bad for kids whose parents are always in the home office, it can cause you to lose sight of what is important. I have found the pedometer to be a great motivator to getting to know my kids better.

A simple walk across the living room can bring about all kinds of opportunities to ask questions about the activities that kids are engaged in — even if they are the type that prefers to work alone. I also love that playing active games with the kids in an effort to pump up the number of steps brings the family closer together (i.e., I love my Xbox Kinect).

A Cleaner House

This was an unexpected and wonderful consequence of sporting a pedometer. If I’m up and moving about, I’m likely to be clearing clutter, switching over a laundry load, or vacuuming (which burns more steps than any other cleaning activity.) If I hit 4 p.m. with few steps counted, I’ll jump up and do a marathon speed-cleaning. It not only gets my step goals met for the day, but is also keeps hubby happier.

Healthier Diet

My particular pedometer tracks calories burned based on the length of my stride and the number of steps I make, giving me an estimation of just how much work it takes to undo that donut I had earlier in the day. This makes it much easier to make good food choices — especially now that I’m painfully aware of how many rooms I have to vacuum to cancel out mindlessly eating from the chip bag.

Now that I’ve had a chance to incorporate a high-quality, multi-function pedometer into my lifestyle, I really have no excuse for being lazy. For something that’s incredibly effortless to use (you just clip it on), it’s made a major impact on my work-at-home, homeschooling day.

How have you benefited from a pedometer?

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Guest's picture
srah

Wearing a pedometer helps you realize how little you move in an average day AND come up with ideas of how to increase it. For me, it made me appreciate bad parking spots!

Guest's picture
Guest

What a coincidence! My friends keep raving about their pedometers and how it's helping on their diets. Their daily step count has become a game where they try to do better than each other when we have lunch. "I had a 12,000 step day this week!" "Only up to 6,000 today."

Off to amazon to shop for one.... anyone have tips about particular models or features?

Linsey Knerl's picture

I have an Omron HJ-112 Premium Pedometer that I love. It does calories, and lets you set your stride length. (Disclosure: I received it from Walmart as part of a campaign on another blog I did for them, but after buying quite a few very cheap ones and having them break, I think I'd buy this one myself if given the choice.) Anyone else have a pedometer they like?

Guest's picture

I'm definitely going to add this to my wishlist. It seems like a great way to consciously see how much you're moving throughout the day. Thanks!