Working Out

As I do several times a year, I hauled out my blood pressure monitoring kit a few weeks back to see if I was still alive. Yes, I have blood pressure, and it is still very good. All last year it was in the optimal range. It crept up into the low normal range this time and I thought I would do a little experiment. I have been on the treadmill every day for the last two weeks with the exception of yesterday. I walk at 3 mph for twenty minutes (1 mile) and it leaves me with an elevated heart rate and a revved up metabolism. I find walking on the treadmill is more of a workout that just walking down the road. I do not hold onto the bars as they are too low for me so I watch TV and walk. Maintaining a pace and position that keeps me from falling off the back, as well as the extra balancing that is required, warms me up pretty good.
Yesterday I put on my pedometer in the morning to see how many steps I walked. The benchmark for good health is 10,000 steps a day. In the morning, we did our shift at church, running around in the kitchen making sure 250 folks got their coffee and bagels in the 'drop in' center. Then, after the hockey game, busylizzy and I went for a good long walk. At the end of the day, my total steps were 10,750. Now that was a work out. I do not think I could do that every day without a deliberate attempt. I will test a normal work day to see where that brings me. I might be surprised. In another week or two, I will again test my blood pressure and see if the regular exercise will make a difference to my blood pressure, which is already good. If it does not make any difference at all, I will have to find a really good excuse to keep on exercising, apart from work. :)