November 22, 2013

FitDog Friday: Counting Paws & Steps

The hubs and I recently added pedometer apps to our smartphones. We thought I'd easily hit the suggested goal of 10,000 steps/day (since I walk Rita every morning for 45-60 min, plus run errands, etc.), and we figured the hubs would have a hard time since he's often stuck in endless meetings and works 10-12 hour days.
The Unit enjoys a good walk
Well, we were right about him anyway. I was surprised to find how hard it is to hit 10K steps! I realize as a writer I have a very sedentary job, but I thought between running errands, doing stuff around the house, and walking for almost an hour every morning, I'd hit 10K or more easily. Nope. I'm averaging about 8-10K steps a day, so we are trying to "step it up." (Okay, collective groan.) 

Rita and I have started adding extra loops here and there on to our walks. As for the hubs, once his work calms down a bit, hopefully we'll get back to adding in a nighttime walk.

Rita doesn't wear a pedometer, but we do count her "paws" earned over at PetsMove.org, the site started by the folks at SlimDoggy. Similar to First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move initiative to combat childhood obesity, PetsMove is aimed at fighting pet obesity and related health problems. You can register for free, and then track your pup's activity in a daily "Diary."
"Let's add another loop, Momma!"
For example, so far today Rita and I walked 55 minutes, which earned us 4 paws. We'll probably have a play session later and try to get some more paws. (I forgot to enter our walk/playtime yesterday so entered it today, so now it looks like we've done TONS today. I hope that's not cheating!)

Once you enter your pup's activity in the diary, you can see if you've made the leaderboard. It's not easy to get into that top 10. Man, there are some ACTIVE dogs on the site! But last week we made the leaderboard:
Rita hit 8th place with 37 paws. (153 paws for Kayo! WOW!)
I must admit, I'm glad Rita doesn't need 100+ paws worth of activity a week! 

I also like to check the Paws by State chart. Rita and I are working hard to help CA catch up to FL, although they have a mighty big lead. 
Click to Bigify and see how FL leads the pack
What can I say, the hubs and I are accountants (or at least I used to be) so I guess we enjoy counting! What about you? Do you count your pet's paws on PetsMove or count your steps for fitness?

And thanks for SlimDoggy, Peggy's Pet Place, and To Dog With Love for hosting FitDog Friday!

30 comments:

  1. I was counting Bunny's steps on the site, but I can't log into it every day and it won't let you do several days' worth at once, so I got a little frustrated with it. I wear a pedometer and actually, Bunny has one, too. We have two for the dogs, and we put them on when we go on walks and hikes, but they're a little big for everyday wear.

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    1. If you don't log in every day, just add the activities from the prior days when you do log in. You can add several at once so it is a breeze.

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    2. I'm glad to hear I wasn't "cheating" when I put in yesterday's activity today! :)

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  2. We're going to be adding a feature that will allow you to put yesterday's (or last week's) activity in - I forget to do it everyday too! Congrats to Rita for making the LeaderBoard - it's tough with those 3 leaders we have - big active dogs that do a TON of stuff - even Jack can't keep up with them, but Jack also has 5-6 years on all of them, so I guess for a senior he does okay. THanks for writing about PetsMove and for joining the Hop!

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    1. Yeah, those 3 leaders are super active. Man! Impressive. Rita's young, but she's just not super energetic. She's kinda perfect for me - we both like to get our exercise in, and then chill. Neither of us are the 'go, go, go' type!

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  3. Our state is definitely trailing behind! I keep meaning to get a pedometer app but I haven't yet.

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    1. The one we downloaded is called Accupedo. It seems to eat up a lot of battery, so I'll probably delete it once I kind of have a baseline understanding of how many steps we're getting in a day.

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  4. When you spend your day at a desk, it is hard to get all those steps in--even with the dog walking. I've started building exercise into some funky places. For instance, I do 15 push ups while I'm waiting for the shower water to get warm. :)

    Honey actually burns too many calories. So I have to be careful to give her enough food for the exercise she gets. I wish I had her problem.

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    1. I wish I had Honey's problem too!

      That's a good idea about the pushups. I used to sneak squats in here and there, but have been lazy about that. Will have to start doing that again!

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  5. Replies
    1. We're trying! Gotta move it or lose it, as they say.

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  6. I really need to get in the habit of using Pets Move. It's such a great site and I'm planning to write an article, but I just haven't been using it lately. Thanks for the inspiration.

    I started carrying a pedometer during the day, because I sit so much - it takes all day to hit 10k if you make a little effort and walk the dogs :)

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    1. Yeah, I sit so much too. I thought just the long walk with Rita each day would be enough but I was wrong! It takes about a 90 min walk to hit 10K steps, and we only walk 45-60 min on weekdays, so I need to get more steps in around the house/running errands.

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  7. Thanks for the excuse not to count steps. I was an English major who barely got through math classes and my checking account has my bank in stitches. I have a total dislike for numbers (unless they have a $ in front of them). Any counting I'm afraid would cut into the fun we have for exercising but I have great admiration for those of you so disciplined.

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    1. I'm one of the weird ones who likes both numbers and words! Numbers are our friends! :)

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  8. Chester and Gretel made it into the weekly top 10 once but we'll probably never catch up for the overall top 10.

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    1. Yeah, we joined a little late, so we'll never catch the overall either!

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  9. Great post, good for you tracking your steps, I do that also using a android run pedometer app that links right to my fitness pal which I use to tract the food I stuff in my mouth. I use slim doggy app to figure calories but don't have a iphone yet to do anymore with it and I track my pets movement on petsmove also. Great website they have there!

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    1. Oh dear. I haven't gotten around to tracking the food I stuff in my mouth yet. I'm afraid too! Good for you for being so diligent! No wonder you lost all that weight!

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  10. Great idea but as I run around like an idiot chasing squirrels peeps doesn't bother monitoring my number of steps. Have a super Saturday.
    Best wishes Molly

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  11. No counting around here, unless the dogs decide to start doing it ;-) In fact, I'm not participating enough (not at all is not enough, right?) at PetsMove. I keep promising myself: after the holidays.

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    1. After the holidays is always a good time to get on that stuff!

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  12. It's so much fun tracking the dogs' activity on PetsMove. Since our dogs are all seniors, there's a little less competition there so we can get up on that leaderboard quite a bit. However, there's still some stiff competition....some very active seniors out there too! I'm going to get one of those pedometer apps, that sounds like a good way to track my activity.

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    1. We've become obsessed - and quite competitive with each other! It annoys me now if I'm doing something that requires standing in one place, and the hubs will grab his phone and start walking around the house!

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  13. Nice overview of the PetsMove site. We've just joined & like you are forgetting the daily login so will be looking forward to them getting a belated tab up there for those that need some catchup. Looks like you're all being FitDogs in your family

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    1. Yeah, it will be nice when you can go back and enter days you missed. I guess it's okay to do that now - since I got the official okay from SlimDoggy above!

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  14. Which pedometer app did you download for counting your steps? I've been on the look out for a good one to keep track of our exercise too.

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    1. It's called Accupedo. It seems to run the battery down more quickly, so once I get a handle on how much I need to move around to hit 10K I might delete it, but for now it's a really good motivator to get those steps in!

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  15. I had an app for my phone, it was called Map My Walk, but it sucked the life out of my battery, so I deleted it. Besides it was so discouraging to me, to walk for so long and discover I'd only burned a few calories.

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