Sometime last year, I started walking. Theoretically, it was for exercise and fresh air and blah blah blah; but – in reality – it was just because I found a cool app for my phone that would track me with GPS and draw little maps of where I walked and let me do flyovers of my path via Google Earth. Sure, I figured I could use the exercise, too. However, I grew bored with the maps and I was so completely out of shape that my calves screamed at me every time I walked more than about half a mile; so I basically gave it up.
Then, right around the time I got my bonus this year (March), I spotted some stuff made by the Withings Corporation that looked really cool – namely, a wi-fi scale that also tracks body mass and a blood pressure gauge that connects to my phone and stores the information over time. I also saw a cool little wi-fi pedometer that doubles as a sleep monitor. So, as is my wont to do, I splurged on toys with a hunk of my bonus (after paying a bunch of bills) and bought all three of the ones that I just mentioned.
See, I really like statistics, and I like for them to be usable and applicable to my life, but I hate having to collect them. Small data sets suck. If you’re (for example) trying to graph your weight over time, you have to keep track of what it is every time you take it and then live with the fact that, at least for a few months, you’re not really going to see any trending. You’re just going to see a bunch of data points.
That bores the snot out of me.
With the Withings Scale and Blood-Pressure thingy, though, I don’t have to keep track. I just step on the scale (or take my BP), and the information is magically transported to an account that I set up online. The pedometer does the same thing with steps taken and elevation changes and how many times I wake up during the night. On my little online profile, it asks what my motivation is for exercising. My answer is, truthfully, “I like playing with stats.”
So, naturally, I decided to start walking a lot more. After all, I’d still get the cool mappy things plus I’d have more steps and more data points. Also, since we would assume that regular exercise will result in weight loss, a lower fat content, and a more stable blood pressure, walking would allow me to have more interesting trend lines with the Withings products.
An interesting side-note has occurred, though: my calves don’t hurt any more. I went out last weekend and walked 8 miles on Saturday and 5 on Sunday, and my only real complaint was that the music list on my iphone – which I’d chosen based on the tempo of the songs being around 131 beats per minute, was too damned slow.
So I’ve upgraded my set list with tunes of around 137 BPM now. I’m walking faster and farther and getting lots of good data to graph (elevation, time spent, average speed, total distance, etc.) and I’m also getting to know my way around neighborhoods that – though I’ve lived in them for 13 years – I never knew.
The weight, btw, is going down. I think I’ve lost about 9 pounds since the middle of April. Jury’s still out on the blood pressure, but I’m going to give the walking thing at least 6 more months before I break down and go to a doctor. That’s just the way I roll.
If you’re curious, I’m closing in on 100 miles. Not bad for a guy who was basically sedentary until two months ago.
I got an email from a friend today linking to a recipe for whiskey and caramel s’mores with bacon. You might think that that sounds disgusting. I think normal s’mores sound disgusting (hell – normal s’mores are disgusting and you’ve known it since you turned about 7 years old), but with the bacon, whiskey and caramel….I think it sounds pretty awesome.
On this day in history, Charles Lindbergh landed in Paris. That was in 1927, I believe. Exactly 5 years later, Amelia Earhart completed her own trans-Atlantic flight.
Friggin’ plagiarist.
TWD