Tracy has blogged about doing it again. This time I’m in too, counting steps as part of the Virgin Pulse Global Challenge. I’ve got my reservations about the trend to share health data with employers and about corporate healthism that’s part of these workplace fitness challenges. Still, I thought better to give it a go and see what it feels like from the inside rather than worrying from the outside. I don’t expect any big lifestyle changes frankly but we’ll see.
Like lots of people who exercise regularly I suspect I don’t move as much as I could when I’m not working out. I’ve got the walk to the subway these days when I’m in Toronto and bike commuting and dog walking when I’m in London, but there’s room for improvement, I’m sure.
I’m on the team NASTY WOMEN & BAD HOMBRES. My team is a bit intimidating since it’s made up of multi-sport athletes training for Ironman and half Ironman distance events. I’ll be riding a lot though so I’ll keep on the bike side of the equation.
This morning I went to the grand kick-off which was good for a healthy mid-morning snack. Apples! Birdseed bars! There was also lots of nutritional info there and I think I will focus on food tracking for the 100 days.
As you can see from the photo below, I brought my commuting bike into the event. I figured they couldn’t very well say no to my bike at a healthy movement challenge kick-off.
Anyway, I’ll report back and I’ll let you know how it goes. And as Tracy says I like counting things. Tracking doesn’t bug me at all. So who knows, it might be a good fit.
Skeptical, mildly enthusiastic, I’m in.
I am in too!
I can’t decide if being irked by your hand-picked team (btw great name!) makes me a bad sport or if the fact that your team is hand-picked reflects on the sportsmanship of others. On the one hand, it’s just a workplace challenge meant to be fun and get people moving so who cares if some people feel the need to make sure they’re on a winning team (I know you’re not one of those people)? On the other hand, it’s just a workplace challenge meant to be fun and get people moving so why stack a team in the first place instead of spreading the strong folks around? So you can see I’m going both ways with this.
In any case, I’m hoping to have a different experience this year, as I said last week: https://fitisafeministissue.com/2017/05/16/how-fomo-drew-me-back-to-another-summer-of-counting-steps/ And it’s not as if being on the stacked team would feel like fun for me (I’m competitive but I also panic when I’m not pulling my weight, so I think it would stress me out). Anyway, you guys have a high bar to maintain, so get moving! Meanwhile, I’ll just continue to aspire to my 16500 average step count per day and see if I can sustain it for another 100 days this summer.
I will be very interested to hear your reflections on the challenge at the end of the 100 days. It strikes me as something that would agree with your love of tracking and competition.
Here’s another way to think about the team. If I were on a team of people much less active than me, I’d feel like a rock star without doing much of anything and I’d get frustrated with them. The whole effort wouldn’t mean much to me. I’ve been tracking steps with a FitBit for a long time now and how many steps I get in a day isn’t news to me. I’m thinking I’ll be inspired by my much more active team members. I kind of like being the slowest cyclist in the bunch. I ride with fast people as long as they’re happy to have me along for the ride. This is like that. I’m not training for an Ironman unlike some of my other teammates. So far I’m already 6000 steps a day below the team average. Nowhere to go but up!
Yes, that’s a different way of thinking about it that hadn’t occurred to me. My best strategy is probably simply not to think about it at all and just do my thing.