Tuesday, September 07, 2010

O Captain My Captain


Somehow I got duped into being the captain of our wellness team at work.

Maybe I should be honored that when corporate decided to have a wellness challenge a number of people asked me to join their team. A late comer was my direct boss who thought our division should have our own team.

No one in our division works out of the same office. We are spread out from Connecticut to Missouri to Atlanta. Even the few from Philly don't work from the same office.

Anyhooo....I kind of volunteered for the gig of team captain only because I thought someone else took the job and I was just trying to score points for "making the attempt".

The joke was on me: the other person just said he'd participate, not head the team.

No worries. I'm fine with being team captain, and of course, I'm doing it with humour. My motivational messages have been tongue-in-cheek. I know that better health and exercise cannot be dictated and that everyone doesn't have the same desire, goals or skill set.

The first two weeks will be just to see how many more steps you can do in a day - with the help of recording them from a pedometer.

I've been wearing mine for about two weeks (the challenge didn't officially start until yesterday) just to get baselines on what I do on gym days versus non-gym days. It's quite amazing actually on how much I do versus how much I think I do. And Spin class does not rack up as many 'steps' as you might think. I think the pedaling doesn't record them the same way as walking.

An man will walk an average of 7200 steps per day. 5200 for women. On some charts, 9,999 is considered 'somewhat active'. Even as much as I walk per day, or on the elliptical or treadmill, I have yet to reach the 10,000 mark. So I'm only 'somewhat active'........or below that.

The sad fact is, I'm more active than most on my team, so this will be an interesting 12 weeks of doing and recording activity for all of us.

My thing is: even if it gets them thinking more about it, I've done my job.



Song by: David Broza

5 comments:

Cubby said...

Maybe you need a better pedometer that can deal with the pedaling motion of spin bikes and elliptical machines. Is there such a thing?

A Lewis said...

Maybe you could lead a Jazzercise class...complete with sweat bands for the heads and leg warmers for the ankles. You, sir, are far above the rest of the world on your commitment to health and exercising. They've picked the right person.

Raybeard said...

Does your pedometer go 'beep' when you walk past a Catholic priest?

Ur-spo said...

keep on walkin'

Blobby said...

Different kind of pedo-meter RB, but it might be more efficient than a sexual predator list.