Motivated to Walk

MOTIVATED TO WALK

It takes just a simple thing to get motivated to walk. In late June, 2009, our medical insurance made available to us a pedometer. It records every step that is taken. It is part of a walking program that records your daily steps, downloaded into a computer program.

The steps recorded then are converted into health miles. There is a reward. At the end of the year, we will be awarded a monetary bonus. I told my wife, we both should engage in the program. We did.

The pedometer now attached to my shoe or tied around my ankle is the seed of motivation. It caught the competitive spirit within me. I thought I had laid to rest that competitive spirit after I hung up my baseball glove in serious competition years ago. It’s still there.

Self-motivation has turned into collective motivation. In October last year, eight regions of our United Methodist Church competed in walking, church conferences in California, Delaware, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania. We got a little more serious about walking.

When my wife and I were in Las Vegas, we decided to see the new hotels along the strip. We are not gamblers. We decided to walk from the Belagio to the Venetian. We also wanted to see the new City Center. When my wife took the esclator, I took the steps. That day my wife walked some 22,000 steps (almost 7 miles); I walked over 30,000 steps (about 10 miles).

Every day we download our steps until the challenge was over. Our California-Hawaii group ended up dead last out of eight conferences; I personally did well in the challenge, but more importantly, both my wife and I make it a point to walk every day.

This program with Virgin Health Miles provides a motivating factor, to set goals, to record bio- measurements, blood pressure, weight loss, and to create personal programs for physical activity. In my program which I was already doing, I use several equipments—rowing machine, trampoline, chin up bar in our garage, stationary bike, a basketball hoop, and two 25 pound dumb bells.

My wife Sylvia goes to the fitness center for her exercise. I also walk along Main Street. In our trips we have walked in interesting places, but that’s another story. I have become a kind of a marathon walker.

It doesn’t take much to be motivated. It can take just one thing like a pedometer. Motivation means, setting a goal, putting your mind to it, doing an inch at a time, a minute at a time, and staying with it.

It was the Apostle Paul who said that our body is a temple of God. It is a gift. It is like a machine, it is meant to work, it reaches higher efficiency when it is used, and the more you use your body, the better you feel and the more energized you become. You should try it!

Dennis Ginoza
December 26, 2010