Have Pedometer, Will Walk

June 25, 2007

I've been scouting for a cheap pedometer since summer and had even gone as far as Bambang - the Manila hub for medical and laboratory supplies. With a friend in toe, I combed the dizzying jungle of Bambang but the step counter, even the expensive breed proved to be a very elusive beast. Finally, a store clerk directed us to an Omron distributor in Hidalgo, Quiapo. The Hidalgo store has the very basic step counter but it sells for a whopping 600 pesos! The mall prices of these branded pedometers range from 700 to 2000 pesos with the more expensive ones packed with features such as calorie count and total distance traveled, among other things. But these values could be approximated by the user so I just wanted the no-frills digital counter.

I have almost forgotten about the search but last week while "malling", I came across a pedometer-like device at Japan Home Center in Parksquare, Makati. I asked a store clerk what it was and he replied with haste and certainty that it was a timer. The label was in Japanese but I very much doubted if the thing was just a timer since a picture of walking feet and the number 99999 were in the label. Anyway, just to be sure and with the permission of the store clerk, I opened the package and turned the device on. I clipped the device to my belt in my waist and started walking. It was a pedometer! For only 88 pesos, I must say this is the cheapest pedometer in town. It comes in different colors too: black, red, blue and green (got the black one). I find it so cheap that 2 days later I bought a spare (red this time) from another branch in another mall.

The reason I wanted a pedometer so bad (but not so bad that I would shell out 600 - 2000 pesos for it) is I need to get in shape. I am getting fat (fatter is a more accurate adjective, I think) due to a sudden change in lifestyle from being always on the go to being always home. Now, I'm the last person to worry about my weight because I know I could shed off pounds and get back in shape quite quickly. I have a list of exercises I enjoy engaging in: biking, badminton, and walking. If I notice that my pants are getting slim (that's another way of looking at it, ha!), I would hop on to my bike and bike around the neigborhood for 30 minutes a night for a week or so. Unfortunately though, my situation has changed too. We moved in a neigborhood that is not exactly bike-friendly. So biking as a form of exercise is no longer possible. Unless I am willing to battle it out head-on with raging motorists. Alternatively, I would sweat it out with a willing friend on the badminton court. Friends are so busy carving out their respective niches in the society that they don't have time for play. I could have hired someone from the court to be my sparring partner but I'm not the paying type. Hehe.

So that leaves me with no choice other than walking. For weight management, one must walk 10k steps a day, roughly equivalent to walking 5 miles (about 8 km in metric). I have the pedometer on me the moment I wake up. I only remove it when I take a bath and when I sleep. To make my walking program work, I signed up for a free account at walker tracker. At the end of the day, I log in my steps and the walker tracker does the rest: graphing my progress, scoring my diligence, and even comparing my performance with my walking comrades. Also as a registered user, I get to post in my website their nifty widget, as shown below.

<br /><a href="http://walkertracker.com/walker.php?zenglebron&i=b8123a6d778" title="A walking community for pedometer geeks">View zenglebron's Step Blog at Walker Tracker</a>

Hopefully, the pedometer and the walker tracker will motivate me to stick to the program. For the past week, it has. But it's too early to tell if this will work. In the meantime, I will just keep walking.