Pedometer as a Personal Exercise Motivator

It's a human tendency (or is it just me?) to slow down with advancing age. Sports activities diminish, except for the viewing kind, and trips to the gym get curtailed. Also, a couch looks increasingly inviting by the day.

On the other hand, the dispensation of medical advice to exercise more also picks up in tempo, getting strident with each doctor visit when the only direction on a weighing scale is UP. Cutting down on food intake can only do that much. So I have been looking for a motivation to exercise, something like a constant reminder that would track my progress by the minutes, aside from wify's nagging, but delivered in a loving way and accepted whole-heartedly.

And my prayer was answered: CY sent me a Father's Day gift parcel that included just that: a pedometer. Actually two, the other one being for wify. Honestly, this is the first time I have even heard of the gadget/device. This particular one is a SPORTLINE walk and run collection, touted to “accurately counts walking, hiking or running steps” and be “prefect for 10,000 steps/day programs”.

So both I and wify have been wearing the pedometers at the waist since day 1, and religiously recording the number of steps achieved each day, eliciting “Wow” and “Ah!” from us whenever a new milestone was reached. In the past twelve days, wify has breached the 10,000 mark (the highest being 16,476), which has been claimed as the yardstick for an active lifestyle, on 7 of them while just short of that magical target in 2 of them.

Me? Well, as a sedentary worker confined to the office and often glued to the computer screen, it comes as no big surprise that my highest is just over 7,600 counts, which is on a Saturday. Must be a day of weekend grocery shopping, I reckon.

After 12 days of use, we kind of know what step counts to expect from our daily activities. Just by doing household chores alone, ascending/descending three levels, moving around the kitchen preparing our three meals, and circum-ambulating while reciting Buddhist sutras and mantras, would gain wify around 5,000 – 6,000 counts.

In contrast, my typical 8-hour day at the office, including the walk to and fro from the carpark and trips to the printing machines/break room/restroom/conference room/colleagues' rooms plus walking in circles within my own room, a more recent add-on in order to boost my step count, would reward me a lowly 2,000 – 2,500 counts. Obviously, some kind of supplementary physical activity is called for.

The evening walks. A typical half-an-hour around part of the west side of USF campus (before the Sun Dome) adjacent to our house would count for 2,000 steps. A further foray up to the center of USF Campus (just beyond the Library) and back, taking up to an hour or so, would double that. So that has helped push up my daily score past 5,000.

Starting two weeks ago, wify and her Arts teacher, Mrs. Fan, have been going for aerobic exercise (twice a week for 1 hour each) and dance class (once a week for 2 hours) at a nearby community center. These are locally sponsored community programs for 50+ (age wise)/seniors/AARP (formerly American Association of Retired Persons) members, free for aerobic and $6/class for dance classes. The average count she scored for an aerobic class is about 2,500 and for a dance class, about 3,500. The reason for the less than doubling of the step counts, which is disproportional to the duration of activity, is because a dance class involves frequent stoppage while the teacher is explaining the moves. So at least for three times a week, wify's target of 10,000 counts is always met, except when evening showers wash out the evening walk routine, which has become a frequent event lately.

As you can see, I still have a sizable shortfall to fill. Several options come to mind: parking further from the office; afternoon walk around the park (one of my colleague does just that, walking to Bayshore Blvd and back, while the other one goes one up: he jogs during lunch time and comes back all sweaty); or extending the route of the evening walk (our furthest was up to the USF campus lake fronting the Psychology/Music Buildings at the east side of Campus taking more than an hour, but that was before we had the pedometers). It seems I would have to add all three in order to top the threshold of 10,000 steps/day. And I look forward eagerly to that day.

Some information on pedometers from the friendly people at Wikipedia:

“A pedometer (also known as a Tomish-meter, perhaps after the alleged inventor of a successful device, Thomas Jefferson ) or step counter is a device, in modern times usually portable and electronic or electromechanical, that counts each step a person takes by detecting the motion of their hips. Because the distance of each person's step varies, an informal calibration performed by the user is required if the distance in yards or miles is desired.

Used originally by sports and physical fitness enthusiasts, pedometers are now becoming popular as an everyday exercise measurer and motivator. Often worn on the belt and kept on all day, it can record how many steps the wearer has walked that day, and thus the kilometers/miles (distance = number of steps x step length). Some pedometers will also erroneously record movements other than walking, such as bending to tie one's shoes, or road bumps incurred while riding a vehicle, though the most advanced devices record fewer of these 'false steps'. Step counters can give encouragement to compete with oneself in getting fit and losing weight. A total of 10,000 steps per day, equivalent to 5 miles (8.0 km), is recommended by some to be the benchmark for an active lifestyle, although this point is debated among experts. Step counters are being integrated into an increasing number of portable consumer electronic devices such as music players and mobile phones.”

Oh, yes, the pedometers were made in China, a clear portent announced in the very first sentence of the book, China, Inc. (TC Fishman, Scribner, 2005), another gift in the Father's Day parcel from CY:

“CHINA IS EVERYWHERE THESE DAYS.”

Hand-made Cards that Make Our Day

While Mother's Day was celebrated last month, June ushers in Father's Day, celebrating the other half of the parental edifice. From being children ourselves, we have assumed the role of parents, not once, but four times as our household expanded. Now our two youngest are already in college, paving their way to become independent adults.

From bearing gifts to our parents, we have now become recipients in our own right. As parents, seeing our children grow up to become responsible adults is the best gift that we could ever get.

Each of our children has a different disposition. So are the ways they display affection, following the general pattern that daughters usually take after their mom and vice versa. Being perhaps the most expressive and creative of our children, CY sent a self-made card each to wify and me on the above occasions, along with other gifts driven by her uncanny sense of our preferences, and her perception of what we needed the most at this stage of our life. But nothing beats the hand-made cards and the messages thereon.

Here I would like to share the cards she has made for us while leaving the messages private for Mom and Dad to savor. You can see that CY really takes after her Mom in creating pictures out of imagination. We are really blessed to have our children turning up the way they are.

For Mom.

For Dad.

A Father's Day Dedication

Today is Father’s Day, dedicated to all the fathers of the world, yours truly included. Unlike last year, CY (aka Big May) sent her wishes in the form of a blog article. The wonder of Internet.

But what is more wonderful is found in what she has penned for this special occasion, though I would like to rededicate her words to all the great dads in the world, your perseverance has not been in vain.

That got me thinking about my own dad, though he is no more around to partake of my reminiscences. But I would go ahead anyway.

My dad was a man of few words, having trudged for thousands of miles from Southern China to the then Malaya in the early 1900s, a diaspora driven by economic imperatives. I can only imagine the arduous journey that he had undergone, and the difficult startup that he had to endure to feed his family. By the time I was old enough to be aware of the going-on around me, he was already retired of sort, we being born in different centuries. So a lot of his ventures I only knew through second-hand accounts, from my elder siblings, and cousins.

My most vivid recollection of my dad, one that has etched into my memory, is him sitting on his rattan chair, one hand holding a cigarette, and the other holding a glass cup of whisky, seemingly in deep thought. His eye lids would occasionally flutter, indicating that he might be wrestling with an issue in his mind. Then he would tap lightly on the small table next to him, and that would be my cue to fill up the glass, one third whisky and two thirds water. Then he would be back to his ruminating self.

Sometimes, I would summon enough courage to report on my academic achievement to him, in an attempt to garner parental recognition as most kids do, even today. In response, he would give a slight nod; but that’s as far as he would go in terms of oral encouragement. On the few occasions that he uttered something to me, it would usually signify something I committed that had incurred his wrath, and he did have a booming voice for his relatively small frame. But those were rare occurrences, and were usually reserved for my elder siblings. Perhaps I was the youngest and as a result he could have cut me more slacks than others.

I could relate two other incidents that further illustrate our interactions. He had made his living by operating a rubber dealer shop in a small town, but we lived about half a mile away up on a small knoll. Despite his advanced age (in his 70s), he had never failed to commute between the house and the shop to oversee things (by now one of my cousins was doing the actual day-to-day running of the business), in a vintage Austin sedan driven by either my elder brother, or my brother-in-law. Sometimes, my other cousin chipped in too for he and my brother-in-law both worked in a trunk garage (an elder brother ran the transport trunk company) located just next to the house. And I and my other siblings would be cycling for the daily trip (except on weekends) to help out in the business, which I started when I was two years removed from going to middle school.

On this particular occasion, none of the designated “chauffeurs” was available to take my Dad back to the house. So I was designated as the navigator so that he could drive himself home. But my presence was just needed toward the end of the 10-minute journey when he had to cross to the other side of the main road to enter an unpaved road that would lead to our house, to make sure that the way was clear of oncoming traffic because of his failing sight. I guess along the balance of the way he was more guided by his habitual instinct rather than actually being able to see clearly where he was going. And perhaps I was young and thrilled by the prospect of doing things alone with my Dad, I did not feel apprehension, but rather a sense of adventure. And that remains the only thing that I had done with my Dad, just the two of us against the world, and that’s how I remember it.

The other occasion is under a less than amicable circumstance. By then I was already studying in high school, in Singapore. While there, I lodged with my elder sister and brother in a condo housing near the top floor. Though I was on a scholarship, periodically my Dad would give me some extra money to help defray some of the living costs. During semester breaks, I would return to my hometown and relive the life that I had left behind: helping out in the business, and, yes, the ritual of filling up my Dad’s glass. When it’s time to return to school, I always bade good-bye to him (by then we had moved to the shop after reconstruction when a second was added to become living quarters.).

On one of these occasions, I forget what the precipitating matter was, only that I walked off in a huff, never even getting the money that was put on the table by my Dad. And I had just enough money in me then for the bus ride to Singapore. I knew I would be in dire straits, financially, having being severed from the paternal support (which obviously was the natural consequence when one walked away from the family, and so I thought) that I had assumed would be coming no matter what, and I remember consoling myself that I would worry about that when tomorrow comes. You know, one of those naïve moments when you think nothing can touch you, and how bad can it get, driven along by that blind ego when things do not go your way, until reality hits. Luckily for me the reality did hit, but not as I had expected.

That evening, while I was pondering my seemingly bleak future at the dining table in my brother’s flat, all alone, a knock came through the door. My other elder brother, who lived on a lower floor on the same block, walked in with money and laid it on the dining table, saying, “this is from Dad.” Apparently, my Dad had called him from my hometown and to get him to pass over the money. And then I felt it: Dad would never abandon me no matter how strong our differences are. I was an impulsive brat, so consumed in my wants that I never gave my Dad a chance to explain his reason for the disagreement.

And I never had the courage to say thank you to him, even though opportunities abounded. And for that, this regret will always stay with me.

Dad passed away when I was a junior in a local university. And I was not even at his bedside when he departed (the university was about 200 miles away). But I would cherish my memory of him. May he rest in peace.