I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if it wasn’t for walking, I’d be dangerously obese.
I see people at work. Customers, coworkers, children, adults. They’re really, dangerously overweight. They waddle as they walk and I know they can’t be comfortable. I watch them eat prepackaged salads… with ranch dressing. They’re not doing themselves any favors. And they scare me.
They scare me because I know that this could easily have been me. The major difference between myself and these people is that I’ve walked everywhere my entire life. One of the earliest places we lived was an address that I can remember as clearly as I can remember my own name:
North Adams, Massachusetts.
We didn’t drive, so we carried groceries up River Street to get to Liberty. We also played outside quite a bit. We rarely lived in a place where going outside wasn’t an option, so my brothers and I always had an opportunity to burn the calories in other ways.
I’m not judging the people I’ve seen. But it wouldn’t surprise me to know that they outside of work or shopping, they probably don’t get a lot of exercise.
I recently learned the the ideal amount of steps is 10,000 per day. At work, in a single shift, I walk about that in just eight hours, plus amount of steps I take to get to and from work and the stairs I have to climb when I come home. I’m not the healthiest person by a long shot but all of the walking has helped.
This episode was going to include a segment about how to use a pedometer to accurately track steps but the one I bought was cheap. And even though I followed the instructions on how to calibrate it, it didn’t want to cooperate. So I’m considering getting a Fitbit in December, when we get the extra bonus discount at work.
For this episode, I did a six mile walk from Williamstown to North Adams. I was originally going to do a promotional spot for Big Y but the owner of the Facebook page North Adams – Good News decided to power trip on me. There’s six thousand people on that page and I honestly don’t know what kind of influence he has, so I’ve decided not to stir the pot at all.
I’m still proud of the Game of Thrones style poop jokes, which I hope people will appreciate.
