With the beautiful weather finally here, we want to promote health and wellness!! Daylight savings kicked in so we can take advantage of the extra sunlight in our days. One major way of doing so is by moving more!!
TEAM CHALLENGE TO STEP ON TOP OF YOUR HEALTH
The Cardiogenix team started a fun challenge two years ago and since then, we aim to complete it every year as a team. The challenge we have created is called the Pedometer Challenge; and it helps us all stay on top of our health all in having a great, fun, and friendly competition. We would love for you to be part of our challenge and step it up during this warm season!
After the long winters where we all hibernate and tend to eat more and move less, we must then get back into the groove…what better way to do so then to have a pedometer challenge. So, you might be wondering by now, what is this challenge all about? Well… moving more… but how exactly?… by simply walking… is that easy! A pedometer is a very useful device that counts your daily steps, you can wear it without people even noticing. At Cardiogenix, we started this because it’s always fun as a team or as a family to challenge ourselves and our health, it makes everything more enjoyable when everyone motivates each other all the while maintaining their competitive edges.
COUNT YOUR TOTAL WEEKLY STEPS
The way we organize the challenge is by planning it into a one month schedule. We have a very organized team! Two team members have created a very detailed excel file to keep track of everyone’s steps, so we are all able to monitor our progress and keep the competition going! At the end of each week, everyone needs to hand in their total weekly steps and we tally up numbers to see which participants are in the lead. The results for our first week were surprising!!… Some team members were surprised at how many steps they did in a day… and others realized that they needed to walk more… this challenge helped all of us change daily habits and make every step count!
The challenge kept going for 3 more weeks and to keep everyone updated, all of the team members would receive an email with the results per week. At first we wanted to reach 1 000 000(1 million) steps as a team by the end of the fourth week, but we quickly realized that we could do better, as we had reached 868,895 steps by the end of the first week. We then changed our objective to 5 000 000(5 million!) steps for the final objective of the challenge, which meant that we all had to step it up and help achieve our overall goal.
When we approached the final week, it’s usually always a close tie! Everyone strived to walk more and increase their steps from week to week in order to reach our final goal. For our first challenge ever, we managed to compile a total of 3,995,693 steps as a group. Although we didn’t reach our overall goal, we did receive the amazing benefit of being healthier towards the end of this challenge, being able to walk more and appreciate the time we walked. These weeks ended up being quite fun, some staff members even danced during lunch time, other took phone calls standing and lightly jogging on the spot, as well as making several trips up and down our halls to accumulate extra steps!
10 000 STEPS PER DAY TO STAY ACTIVE
Our goal for the pedometer challenge is to complete 10,000 steps or more per day. Everyone put an admirable effort and determination each day to attain or surpass this goal. This is the required amount according to The Canadian Physical Activity Guidelines, in order to achieve health benefits.
WHICH STEPPING CATEGORY ARE YOU IN?
|
Steps Per Day |
Classification |
|
Under 5,000 |
Sedentary |
|
5,000- 7,499 |
Low Active |
|
7,500- 9,999 |
Somewhat Active |
|
Greater than or equal to 10,000 |
Active |
|
Greater than 12,500 |
Highly Active |
If you aren’t sure which health category you are in, take your daily stepping average to gauge your activity level. This will give you a sense of your lifestyle and help you create a specific objective.
TIPS TO ACCUMULATE DAILY PHYSICAL ACTIVITIES
It is recommended that adults accumulate at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorously intense physical activity a week, in bouts of 10 minutes or more. A few tricks that all staff members compiled utilize walking can be :
- parking the car further from places when running errands or going to work. A 10 minute walk to, and from, the car can add steps to your day.
- getting off the bus one stop earlier and walking the rest of the way could potentially increase your daily steps by 1000!
- taking a call while walking the perimeter of your home or office as well as choosing stairs vs elevators whenever possible.
These are just a few ideas to help you meet your stepping goal!
It is important to keep in mind that as the weather gets better we don’t need very much equipment if any at all to walk. It is the simplest, and to this day, one of the best forms of Cardio activity an individual can get. Walking after meals can really help metabolize our food and regulate our weight along with our other body functions. Aerobic activity can help decrease or manage blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol. It can also help increase overall circulation and bone strength. So what are you waiting for? Dust off your running shoes, get out there, enjoy the fresh air, the sunshine and all nature has to offer. Fill your lungs with oxygen and get walking!
Each step counts toward your health!