I just started a new exercise regimen; it’s called walking. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. Apparently it’s been around for a while?
Basically, I got this thing called a pedometer, which is like a portable treadmill. It has the screen part, but that’s it. Also, I can’t hang clothes on it. So that’s a huge plus.
Anyway, when you get a treadmill, everyone always says, “Why are you getting a treadmill? You can’t just walk around outside for free?” And the one thing you can say is that you need something to count how much you’re walking, or else it’s not exercise. Exercise doesn’t work unless you’re counting. It’s literally all about the numbers. And I was tired of walking around all the time, counting my steps in my head like an idiot.
And I’m always looking for ways to work out that I’ll actually do. I constantly have it on my to do list: “Work out”. I’ve written about it a bunch of times too. But I don’t actually work out for the most part.
Also, with most exercises that you take on, the first couple of days you feel like you’re losing weight, but then over time you start losing less, and you get very discouraged, especially since believe it or not, your main responsibility to your family is not to become better and better at jumping jacks. So eventually you drop it. But what – are you going to stop walking? At most, you’ll do less walking. You’re already walking every day; the only question is how much. So fine, you have to walk a little bit more. You already know you can do it. You’ve had days where you’ve walked way more than you thought you could. But you’ve never had days where you’ve done way more pushups than you thought you could. And it’s not like with pushups, where some days you say, “I’m not going to get down on the floor right now.” You’re already walking. Even at the end of the day when you’re tired and can’t move, you’re still walking up to your bed.
The other annoying thing about exercise is that you get all shvitzy. And then you have to shower, which adds time to the whole routine, which you didn’t have time for in the first place. Unless you’re combining the two and doing squats in the shower. So you say, “What if I break it up over the course of the day so I don’t get shvitzy?” But you can’t break it up. I’ve tried it. I’ve said, “I’m not going to do a hundred pushups; I’m going to do ten pushups ten times a day.” Which means that now I have to convince myself to work out ten times instead of once.
And then you start doing math – to cope with the boredom – and you realize that ten workout sessions means that once every hour you’re getting down and doing pushups, and you say, “What am I doing with my life?” What other job do you accomplish like that? You have a duty that you have to do, so you do a tenth of it at a time? No, you want to get it all done. But if you get it all done, you’re shvitzy. So it’s a very big problem.
But with walking, nobody ever says, “I’m going to do all my walking in the morning, and the rest of the day I’m just going to roll everywhere.” (On a rolling chair, I mean, but I now realize that it’s funnier if you don’t realize that.) No, you have to walk anyway. In fact, they say that if you have a desk job, you should get up and walk every hour. So you’re already breaking it up. You’re just losing count. Hence the pedometer.
The point is that walking is literally the easiest exercise you can do. You’ve basically given up.
“I’m going to walk!”
Thanks. We all walk.
“Well, I’m going to walk more than I otherwise would!”
My wife figured this all out years ago. At least fifteen years ago, she bought me a pedometer. It’s very hard to buy someone a pedometer, because it looks like you’re telling them not only to lose weight, but also that they should be spending less time in the house. She solved this issue by buying herself one as well. I thought this was silly, because I was perfectly happy sharing one pedometer. We’re either walking together anyway, or only one of us is using it at a time.
I say this because they say that you’re supposed to try for about 10,000 steps a day. 10,000 steps a day. That totally sounds like a scientific number and not at all like something someone yelled out when people kept annoyingly asking him what they should be aiming for: “I don’t know; ten thousand steps!”
That number is way too round. It ends in four zeroes. And it’s the same for every person, right? It’s like how you’re supposed to drink eight cups of water a day, despite that you know one person who could hold that in their cheeks, and another who can comfortably bathe in it.
I kind of feel like this whole ten-thousand-steps thing was a ploy to sell pedometers. We have to come up with a high enough number that everyone’s going to say, “There’s no way I can count that in my head.” There’s no way people in the old days were counting their steps.
In fact, maybe walking isn’t even a real exercise, and the whole thing is a scam by the pedometer people. They invented a device that counts steps, and they said, “Who’s going to want to do that? Who is that obsessive?” “Well, what if we tell them it’s a weight-loss thing?”
It doesn’t even make sense that it’s an exercise. In fact, the cool thing about a pedometer is that you just put it in your pocket and forget about it, and it ends up in the laundry. No, I’m kidding. But you don’t realize you’re working out as you’re working out. And later in the day you’re looking through your pockets, and you’re like, “Hey! I’m already halfway through working out for the day!” It’s like found money.
In fact, I read somewhere that we burn a certain number of calories just by sitting and breathing, so I think there should be some kind of pedometer-type device for both of those things. That way, I can try to beat my high score of sitting and breathing for the day. Though actually, the way to breath more is to not sit as much. But whatever; I’ll figure it out. Make it happen, pedometer people!
So I bought myself a new pedometer. Yes, my wife had bought me one years ago, which has been living in my nightstand, which doesn’t walk anywhere, and once a year I would clean for Pesach and say, “Hey, I forgot I had a pedometer!” until eventually the pedometer fell apart. From too much cleaning, I guess.
Also, technology has changed. In fact, my son asked me, “Why do you need a pedometer if you already have a device? Why not get a pedometer app?”
Yeah, I’m going to count my steps with a device that I have to charge twice a day.
Also, a pedometer is a reminder to walk. A device is not.
And #3, this is a kid who’s always borrowing my device: “Totty, can I have your screen?”
“Here, take my pedometer.”
Basically, you need a pedometer that doesn’t have games your kids want to borrow.
But actually, I did download a pedometer app – before I even had this conversation – and it turns out that even when you don’t physically have the app, your device is tracking how much you walk, which is super comforting. I know this because as soon as I opened it, there were stats up from the previous seven days. And I thought, “Boy! Apparently, according to this, I don’t walk very much on Shabbos.” And that made no sense, because if anything, I walk more on Shabbos!
And then I realized that it’s just my device that doesn’t move on Shabbos. Because again, my nightstand doesn’t walk.
The fact that I’m this tired is the reason I don’t work out much.
But anyway, I’ve had the app for months now, and it didn’t cause me to walk any more than I had been. I immediately forgot about the app.
The ridiculous thing is that my wife has been walking everywhere for years, and whenever she wanted me to walk somewhere, I said, “I don’t have time for that. I have to work.” But now I have to get a certain number of steps in, so either I can walk there, or I can drive there and then walk later, which in total takes more time. I walk now to SAVE time.
Anyway, if I keep up this exercise thing, I will probably revisit the topic at some point and let you know how it’s going. If I don’t, it means I’m off walking somewhere and could not find my way home.
This thing does not have a GPS.
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia, a monthly humor columnist, and has written six books, all published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send any questions, comments, or ideas to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
