Measured Steps

Some experts recommend accumulating 10,000 steps during the course of your day, which is roughly 5 miles. So when my sister gave me a pedometer, I was curious to see how many steps I log in a typical day walking to all my appointments in New York City. There are some days when I have 8000 by lunch time, but then there are those when I only make 5000 for the whole day.

My husband James and I were lucky enough to spend 10 glorious days in Paris at the end of July. I packed the pedometer as a handy way to make sure we were walking off all the joys of indulging in French cuisine (although I must say that since we had a kitchen where we were staying, we bought fresh fruit, salad, veggies, cheese and bread from the open market to ensure some light, healthy meals).

There's something contagious about counting steps! James became Master of the Pedometer, sometimes insisting that at the end of the day we climb up and down the 4 flights of steps to the apartment to make our total 10,000. Our European friends caught the bug and now want their own pedometers, too. If you're the slightest bit competitive with yourself, it's a fun way to see how much activity you can incorporate into each day, one step at a time.