13 February 2008

Steppin' to the OCD

Like most people who've suffered a decrease in physical activity after enduring a marked increase in nighttime screaming and predawn eyelid yanking, I've gone a bit soft around the middle in the past 3 years or so.

To combat this, I've enlisted the help of my comically debilitating obsessive-compulsive disorder, through the use of a pedometer.

As ridiculous as I may look, I've clipped this thing on my left front pocket every day for over a month now. Since the "other mothers" at library storytime pretty much ignore me anyway, I can unselfconsciously^ drive my way upwards towards the Minimal Acceptable Level For Physical Activity, which is 10,000 steps a day.

It's a lot easier to cite this nice, round number as a baseline than it is to walk it when the people you are chasing only measure their stride lengths in inches. I mean, what are the odds that this magical minimum for all humans is such a perfect number? Did the Masons arrange that, too? Just like they designed the Great Seal of the United States, and the way they planted this clever ruse now that Nicholas Cage has been hot on their trail for 3 years with no signs of slowing down?

...You might think my tendency to be easily distracted, which I'll tell you about some day, would interfere with my quest to achieve 10,000 steps per day. But, my friends, you would be discounting the awesome power of my OCD, which has spawned several worse nicknames for me than LiteralDan.

Do I have a fully calculating spreadsheet on which to record my daily steps and view my monthly average as it changes each day, you ask? You'd better believe I do. And will this spreadsheet only expand exponentially in complexity over time? My Magic 8 Ball says... All Signs Point to Yes. I think it's only basing that on my spreadsheets for our DVDs, Books, Bills, Presents (to give), and... that's all I have, really it is. Well, entirely by accident, I did recently create a spreadsheet for the pledged delegates in the 2008 presidential race. I swear I will delete that one once Obama wins the nomination. (You wouldn't think such a thing would really require a solemn oath, but when freed from the limitations of physical space, you'd be surprised by the useless s**t I have kept "in case I ever need it." Come to think of it, you should also come see the physical space in which I live...)

Anyway, because I'm such a gentleman, I did J- the courtesy of cloning my Steps spreadsheet for her, since she received the same pedometer from my sister this Christmas. All I can say is thank God the thing stores the previous 7 days' totals, or I would never be able to accurately record J-'s steps for her once a week. For some reason, she just doesn't seem to be consistently drawn each day to the computer to fill in the little cell with a number to see how all the other numbers change. And for the record, of course the spreadsheet is for her, not for me-- I am not now helplessly bound to fill the empty box I've created.

Alrighty... after walking around our apartment at least a dozen times just before midnight (I needed to beat my February average, to keep moving forward, and then I couldn't not break 6000 after getting so close), I'm ready to do that thing I do sometimes between feeding people dinner and breakfast... no, after sitting on the computer for a couple hours... for some reason, I can't think clearly enough to come up with what you call that... I'd better go lay down.


^ I've decided that this is a word, and that this is how it is spelled. I bet there's already a German word for it, though, and it would make me sound much more sophisticated.

5 comments:

Crafty Lady said...

i love that you are OCD about recording your steps, not actually getting to 10,000

Anonymous said...

How true.

LiteralDan said...

I'm working my way up slowly... lol

In fact, today I finally broke 10,000 steps

It's hard to imagine doing it every day without trying

LilSass said...

OMG!!! I am SO obsessed with my steps! Hahaha, I hump this post. I do not have an excel spreadsheet for this but I love the pedometer nonetheless. I haven't worn mine in a while so maybe I'll dust it off and give it a go again. I remember one day in the fall of 2006 I walked 26,000 steps!! Living in the Nation's Capital helps with this cause all those monuments are WAY further than they seem.

LiteralDan said...

Clearly, you must make yourself an Excel spreadsheet for your steps. I've used mine to get myself averaging over 10,000 steps now.

Wow! I haven't ever hit 26,000 steps, but just recently I got almost 23,000. A day like that allows me to be really lazy on another day or two. Which I'm sure defeats the purpose.