Walking ...

Before I left Australia I thought a lot about what I would be doing when I arrived here. In my mind I had it all figured out - I'll setup a routine to go walking every day, I'll go first thing in the morning, it will be fun and easy, blah blah blah. I got myself a Jawbone UP wristband just before my departure and thought that it would be great motivation to setup a regular walking pattern for myself.

Well I'm happy to say it has worked, sort of.... I've definitely found that the Jawbone has made me more aware of when I do and don't exercise. I've set it to vibrate if I am still for more than 45 minutes. It also measures my sleep, although I'm not sure how accurate it is (I tend to move around a lot when I'm sleeping and it interprets some of that as me being awake).

The walking is meant to be part of a bigger plan - eating better, joining a gym, drinking more water and generally living a healthier lifestyle. I thought that of all places for me to do this America will surely be the hardest. And if I can achieve it here then I've got no excuse for not being able to do the same thing back in Adelaide!

My overall aim with the walking is to hit 10,000 steps every day. On face value I thought that would be easy - go for a walk and I'll hit that each day. Wrong. 10,000 steps is a lot. I went for a walk today for an hour and still didn't hit that many steps (I didn't do much else during the day so had to add a little walk this evening to get me over the line). It also doesn't account for the days when I can't go for a big walk for whatever reason - bad weather, other plans, seeing friends/family - or when I start working and don't have as much free time. Mum said a lot of people head to the mall in winter to do their walking - and it makes perfect sense. I can see a lot of time spent inside the Mall/Hannaford (supermarket) and Walmart during my winter months here. They are all big places where I can walk and walk and walk.

I have plans for joining a gym next month but I'm still doing some research on that. I want to wait until I start working before I commit to a particular gym location (ideally I want to go to one near where I end up working).

I'll also save my rambling about a healthier lifestyle and losing weight in another post. It's kind of late now and I really need to get some sleep.

Speaking of which, I've noticed that I feel like I'm sleeping better now that I'm walking more. A good side effect!