Every day my phone quietly tells me how many steps I take each day. Some days there’s a satisfying green check mark beside my goal. Other days there isn’t.
I still like having a daily step goal. It gets me off the couch or away from the computer. It encourages me to take breaks and head outside. On a nice day, I genuinely enjoy seeing how far I’ve walked. Even a steady drizzle isn’t too bad.
But I’ve also learned something. Not every step gets counted, and not every counted step tells the whole story.
Take the other day. My phone told me I’d walked a little over 8,200 steps. I smiled because it felt like a good day. But I also knew the real number was probably much closer to 12,000. I’d gone out earlier without my phone, so a few thousand steps simply disappeared as far as the app was concerned.
The app can only count the steps it knows about because my phone isn’t attached to me every waking minute.
Sometimes I intentionally leave it behind because I want a quiet walk without notifications buzzing in my pocket. Other times I’m just moving around the house and don’t carry it.
Every day I climb up and down the fourteen stairs in my place several times. Five steps to a landing, then another nine steps. I probably make that trip half a dozen times a day or more.
The phone counts the individual steps, but it doesn’t really appreciate the effort of climbing them. Anyone who’s carried a basket of laundry or a heavy box upstairs knows that’s a different workout than walking several steps in a parking lot.
There are several long, gradual hills where I live that one friend joked, even her car has trouble getting up. I don’t always walk them but when I do, the step counter doesn’t take in the extra effort needed to get to the top, then down where the temptation is to walk too fast, then turn around at some point and repeat the up and down.
Then there are all the little trips that make up everyday life like walking over to the bay window to look out at the lake while waiting for my soup to heat or going back to another room to retreive my reading glasses or pour my next coffee. I don’t wear my phone when I’m taking out the recycling or the garbage. I don’t wear it when I first wake up and do my business in the bathroom or any other time I head there. If someone knocks at the front door, I don’t wear my phone before getting up and answering it.
None of those little journeys seems important on its own, but together they probably add up to hundreds, and maybe even a thousand steps that are never recorded because my phone isn’t in my pocket.
And then there’s winter.
People love to say, “Just get your steps in.”
That’s easy enough if you live somewhere with cleared sidewalks and mild weather.
It’s a little different in rural Ontario when you live a half hour drive from the city.
After a blizzard, the roads narrow as snowbanks creep in from both sides. Sidewalks can disappear for days. Hidden ice often waits under a fresh layer of snow, and freezing rain or sleet can turn the entire landscape into a skating rink.
At my age, falling isn’t just embarrassing. It can change your life.
Someone always suggests using a treadmill, and yes, maybe I could buy one but I don’t have the room for it. So they say go to the gym.
That’s a great idea…right after they volunteer to drive me there through the same blizzard they’re telling me to ignore because I’m sure as hell not driving in it.
Then there’s the bridge.
From around December 15 through February—and sometimes into early March—I just take it off my walking route.
For three seasons, it’s a nice part of one walking route because you get a great view of where two lakes meet. In winter, the snowplow piles snow right over the sidewalk, so the road is basically the only option.
I tried walking on the road a few times two winters ago, before I came to my senses.
All it would take is one hidden patch of ice.
If I slipped while a car was coming, the driver might not have enough time—or traction—to stop. And suddenly I’m not thinking about step goals anymore. I’m thinking about not getting hit or getting my legs or even head crushed depending on how I landed during a fall.
No fitness app is worth that.
So for about three months of the year, that stretch just doesn’t exist for me. The app doesn’t get why my step count drops. It just sees fewer steps.
I see common sense.
It’s one of the biggest reasons I dream about spending winters somewhere warmer;
I miss the freedom to simply walk long distances.
No wondering if the road has been plowed. No hidden sheet of ice under fresh snow. No bridge that’s off-limits because the sidewalk has disappeared under a mountain of snow.
Just sunshine for the most part, clear sidewalks, and the ability to head out the door whenever I feel like it without putting on two or three layers. That’s why when some fitness guru in San Diego or Phoenix posts that we should be getting in our 10,000 steps every day of the year no matter what, I laugh and think, “Sure, spend a full winter in Minnesota, New England, Vermont, the Dakotas, or cottage country in Southern Ontario, and then come talk to me.” Believe me, we want to and try to, but it’s not always possible.
Ironically, if I did spend winters or live full time in a better climate, I’d probably hit my step goal more often without even thinking about it because the weather wouldn’t be trying to stop me.
The step goal is still a good thing. It motivates me, and on most days I’m happy to see that green check mark.
I just refuse to let a phone convince me that a number matters more than common sense.
Some of the healthiest decisions we make never show up in an app.
