One Step at a Time… Dani Maimone’s 10,000 Steps a Day for Health and Charity

Published on: 11 Jun, 2013
Updated on: 12 Jun, 2013

There’s nothing quite like a challenge to focus the mind. For the time being mine is focusing on the pedometer that hangs daily around my neck and counts my every step, all in the name of charity, the Brigitte Trust who train volunteers to support people with a life threatening illness.

Week One – Everything Hurts!

I’ll be honest, it’s been hard. My feet ache, my legs ache… pretty much everything aches. At times I have wavered but determination to raise money and get fit continues to spur me on.

Dani Maimone (right with very white trainers) and Vanessa Smith.

I spend far too much time in front of a computer and this challenge has focused my mind on how to fit 10,000 steps into my life on a daily basis. In fact, I have become slightly obsessed with achieving my steps to such an extent that last Wednesday evening I walked 12 times around my kitchen table just to get slightly over my target.

I walk to Sainsbury’s now instead of taking the car, unless I need to do a big shop. I park further away from the centre of town and walk in. I run up and down stairs more and the dog has been for some very long walks.

Thursday is my most challenging day as I spend the morning researching information for my radio programme on Brooklands Radio and go on air from 1:30 – 4pm. I arrived home at 5pm last Thursday and had only done 2,000 steps. Eek!

By 7pm it wasn’t much better. I grabbed the dog, abandoned the husband and marched around Burpham like a demented chicken. An hour later I was whacked, the dog was panting and the husband speechless and hungry for supper. He is still talking to me though.

Interestingly after at first calling me bonkers for taking on this challenge he has now asked to be first in line to borrow the pedometer for a day once I have finished with it so that he can see how many steps he does in a working day.

Several of my friends have also showed interest and it has got them thinking about their daily steps as well. I am proud to say that so far at the end of my first week, I have achieved my target and more each day and I have lost two pounds in weight, that’s a kilo in new money!

There is no way I can cheat as all my steps are saved into a little device and have to be uploaded via the internet onto the ‘activity4charity’ website on a daily basis. I had vaguely considered tying it to my dog’s collar as she runs like the wind and has heaps of energy but then that would be cheating and probably wouldn’t work as the pedometer is calibrated to your steps.

It’s interesting that as we humans have become more mobile, using cars, trains etc. to get around, we have become far less active on our feet. It’s scary how inactive I had become and allowed myself to be so governed by my computer. I felt guilty taking time away from it. Not anymore.

On average a person’s stride is about 2.5ft wide, so 10,000 steps a day is roughly five miles or about 8.6km’s. So from doing hardly any exercise at all I am now doing 35 miles, approximately 56.33 kilometres a week.

No wonder my feet hurt. It didn’t help that I wasn’t wearing the right shoes. Yes, very silly of me. I am now however, newly equipped with the perfect pair of sparkling white trainers. I doubt they will stay white for very long.

I have more energy and I am sleeping better. More importantly taking time out away from everything to go for a walk enables me to clear my head, enjoy the countryside and think.

Vanessa Smith shows off her pedometer and charity leaflet

Vanessa, the PR for the Brigitte Trust and the person who got me into this is also taking part and is doing well. I plan to walk with the rest of the team at least once this week and find out how they are doing. I will report back next week.

There is no doubt that walking is one of the best forms of exercise there is and now I have discovered it I don’t plan to stop. I’m just off out to take the dog for another long walk, 4,000 steps to go that’s about a 20 minute walk, once around the block, not that I’m counting of course.

To find out more about the Brigitte Trust charity, check out the website at: http://www.brigittetrust.org/ .

You can also listen to me on Brooklands radio on the internet at www.brooklandsradio.co.uk