Walk a Thousand Miles in My Shoes

Now that the old year is over (You haven’t forgotten about 2015 already, have you?), let’s look back over a few statistics from the year. These statistics, by the way, are brought to you by my Fitbit.

I have apparently become a bit of a data-collection and statistics kind of guy, although you wouldn’t guess it by looking at the grade from my college statistics class. But that was all kinds of formula mumbo jumbo, and all I am doing is analyzing the data in various ways using some basic spreadsheet formulas. Too bad I can’t get a grade on that.

So anyway, here’s the first statistic - Total distance walked in 2015: 1126 miles. For the record, that isn’t “exercise” walking; that is all the walking I did at all, whether it was a few steps across the room or a mile walk outside, as long as I had my Fitbit with me. And there’s the catch, because while we were enjoying a nice Disney Cruise followed by a week in Florida (with lots of walking), my Fitbit was safely charging back at home. I have no hard evidence to back this up, but based on the 45+ miles that I walked during a week in Bangkok, I would guess that I walked at least 50 miles during those two weeks, if not more. But we’ll never know. Boo hoo. Sniff sniff. So anyway, just know that the actual total is even more, if that matters at all to you.

Another statistic - Total floors climbed: 2658. One nice thing about the Fitbit is that it counts a floor for every time you climb a flight of stairs. It doesn’t count when you come back down, I suppose because that doesn’t use as much energy.

Now, let’s break things down just a bit more. Here is a nice chart showing the average number of steps per day for each month:

As you can see, I walked a lot more during the summer months when it was warmer outside and we had more time for things like nightly walks. Although we are doing our best to start that back up now, despite the cold winter weather. And as I mentioned before, I would think June’s average steps would be much higher if that Florida trip were included, but apparently I didn’t do all that much walking after we got home from that (the days when no steps were recorded were thrown out, so that they wouldn’t throw off the average entirely, by the way).

Here’s another table, showing the average steps for each day of the week:

It’s no big surprise that I walked more on the weekends when we had more time for such things. But it is interesting to see that some effort was made to keep walking on Monday and Tuesday, and then it went downhill from there as the week wore me out, until we got to Saturday again. Fascinating.

And one more, looking at the floors climbed per day:

This one is interesting because of the number of floors climbed on Sunday, but there is a perfectly logical explanation for that. The sound room in our church auditorium, where I spent a good bit of time each Sunday, is located at the very top of the balcony. With all of the landings and such getting up there, one trip counts for three floors, and I usually make that trip at least two or three times a Sunday. And it shows. Who needs one of those stair climber machines when you can just climb the real thing?

So there you have it, some rather meaningless statistics about walking from the previous year. I’m already watching this year’s statistics to see how they compare, but since we are only a week into 2016, it is still too early to tell.

Oh, and if all of that put you to sleep, you can wake up now! It’s over!

Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. - Ephesians 5:1-2