One Year of 10,000 Steps

Posted on by Emma

I celebrated an anniversary earlier this month – one year of counting my steps every day. So, what has it taught me?

I’m very competitive – with myself. So, I have done at least 10,000 steps every day now for a year. I can’t bear to have a day where that doesn’t happen. I’ll get up early, if necessary, to walk.

I’m also boring about it. When I told my husband about the anniversary of doing those 10k steps, he said, “a year of hearing about it too”. My NY resolution is to stop going on about it.

A step counter does make you more active in general. If I’m doing housework, for example, I do it inefficiently. I don’t gather up all the stuff that needs to go upstairs or downstairs in one bundle. I take it up and down in a few trips. Going to the library, popping out for supplies from the shops, bringing in the bins…everything becomes an opportunity to add to the step count.

I’m a geek. The UP app is the one I use most on my phone. Have I done my steps yet? How does today compare to yesterday? What’s my average like for this week? The app also tracks your sleep, though that’s not quite as interesting.

You can use exercise instead of insulin. Proceed with caution here, my insulin-dependent friends. This is an individual thing that won’t work for everyone. But walks after lunch do the same job as insulin for me – sometimes.

Exercise won’t help you lose weight, but it will help you maintain. I’ve kept my weight consistent over the whole year, or at least I think it is as I don’t weigh myself. Everything in my wardrobe fits, though, and some of them date back more than ten years.

I feel better. Being active every day makes you feel TERRIFIC.

I’d definitely recommend one. I use the Jawbone Up, the basic model that costs about £5.99. I didn’t want a FitBit as they are much more expensive, and you need to charge them every five days, whereas my entry level tracker needs the battery replaced every two months. The Fitbit also seems invasive. I’m obsessive enough without something on my wrist bleeping at me if I haven’t moved for an hour or so.

Do you find exercise and activity helpful for the management of your diabetes?

Published by Emma

Emma Baird is a type 1 diabetic and a writer, specialising in romcoms and fiction that focuses on relationships. She is also the co-author of The Diabetes Diet and she runs her own blogging/PR business. Most importantly, she is the guardian of two very spoiled cats…

5 thoughts on “One Year of 10,000 Steps”

  1. Congratulations!

    I chortled at your description of doing things inefficiently. I used to do that deliberately but as I age I find it happens automatically – what did I come up here for? – and have to go back downstairs to remember.

    My walking was severely curtailed when my thyroid blew up and took out the arteries in my legs. The Very Sensible Vascular Surgeon told me he “could” give me stents but if I walked through the pain I could revascularise myself, which worked (I assume he’d seen the results in others). At one time I could barely hobble from the car park into the hospital, now I routinely walk a mile or so non-stop, and two or three miles regularly, and up to five miles on occasion. He took me off his list.

    Of course getting the thyroid under control (well most of the time) was a factor, one of the first symptoms of it going high again is that my walking ability gets curtailed. Undoubtedly controlling my BG and hence insulin levels is a factor, but unlikely to undo all the damage from five decades of high BG and high insulin/IR.

    As a weird Type 2 I learned that walking immediately later eating could induce a hypo, while waiting an hour or so would scarcely affect my BG. You might try tinkering with the timing in a similar way to find your sweet spot. One year I demolished an entire Christmas dinner, pudding and all, and even parsnips, by doing a route march round the common between courses, and my BG scarcely went over 6.

    Season’s Greetings!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. And Season’s Greetings to you too! Love the route march around the common between courses idea. My Christmas dinner this year takes place in a house next to a golf course so perhaps I should march to the 18th and back again between canapes and courses!

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      1. I should have added, take your meter and some glucose just in case. One year I took a wrong turn and ended up in the next village, and had to schlep back down the road, in the rain and bitter cold. By the time I got back to my aunts’ house I was under 4. Oh well, a good excuse to eat some Christmas cake, with the icing and marzipan.

        Since becoming largely ketogenic I’ve found two things happen – my glucose varies a lot less, and when it does it causes far fewer symptoms. I suspect this would need great care in balancing with your insulin, my pancreas effectively produces insulin at basal levels but lacks the ability to do boluses so I have learned how best to trick my body into behaving appropriately.

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  2. I am thrilled you are enjoying the tracker. I tried one this year and it never worked out. I wish it had, but maybe next year.

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