Counting My Steps
A recent Tweet from the Wonderful World of Burnsland on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/Burnsland/status/691637556903956480
If you aren’t aware of what is going on here, that is a report of my step and distance count from my Fitbit, specifically from this past Sunday. And if you are wondering, that count is a little bit lower than my average, which so far this year is around 6800 steps, or 2.97 miles, per day. I have that set to post to Twitter automatically each day, if you are wondering.
Because of my magical ability to read minds, thanks to accidentally hitting myself in the head with an empty paper towel roll a few years back, I know what most of you are thinking: “Who Cares?” Am I right with that reading of the minds? Of course I am. The Amazing Burnslandini strikes again.
Anyway, to answer that unspoken question, “I do.” Yes, one of the truths of life is that most people do not post things on social media unless they care about the things they are posting. Even if no one else does. So yes, I care about how many steps I have each day.
So why share it? Mainly to motivate myself to get up and move around some. I hate the days when I don’t have many steps, like one day last week when I had 3900 or so steps, because that makes it look like I didn’t do much at all that day, which I obviously didn’t, for whatever reason.
But I do like it when I get 10000 or more steps, such as this past Saturday. Interestingly, somewhere along the way that post got lost, and it didn’t show up on Twitter. All that walking for nothing. Boo. Actually, I wasn’t doing it for the step count to show up high on Twitter, it just happened to be a quite active day with repairing the horse fence and making a wedding video, among other things. Shame on Twitter or the Fitbit app or whoever else for not posting it.
Some days for us are more active than others. Sometimes, we manage to go on a walk at home (if sleet and snow aren’t pelting us in the face like last Friday), which obviously adds a good bit of steps to our count. And then trips to Walmart or the grocery store add several steps, too. Who knew you could get in so many steps just walking around a store? Sundays are often active days because of church activities, Saturdays are often active days because of all the stuff we do around home, and weekdays are often less active days because I spend a good bit of my day sitting in a chair at a computer. And Laura’s step counts are almost always higher than mine, because she spends a good bit of each day on her feet as a school teacher. Not that I am jealous or anything.
I like all of this wearable technology. And we even talked about it some in Episode 61 of the Beyond the Berm Podcast, if you missed that. And I like seeing how active my friends are, as well, whether it is from their similar Tweets of step counts or from the totals in my Friends list in the Fitbit app on my phone. I don’t give anyone a hard time when they don’t have many steps, because I figure they are having an inactive day or two like me. Or they accidentally left their Fitbit at home while going on vacation, like me. And I am almost never at the top of my list of friends, because there are several others who are much more active than I am, as they go on long runs a few times a week, which I don’t do. So I’m not complaining about my steps in comparison to others, because we all do what we can.
So maybe seeing Tweets about how many steps someone takes each day isn’t your thing. If not, just skim on past those and go on to other more interesting Tweets. Because I’m pretty sure that I will keep on posting them. Because it is automatic, after all.
I have no greater joy than this: to hear that my children are walking in the truth. - 3 John 4
The Expanded Tweets posts expand on a short post on Twitter (or, a Tweet), because 140 characters isn’t always enough to tell the whole story.
