I caught the "Pause for Thought" feature on Radio 2's Wake up to Wogan,
and although it started with one of those Wogan links where they are
having a conversation about something completely staged – in this case
how fit Wogan is looking – then seemlessly drop into the visiting
speakers thought, it hit a nerve with me today. The speaker today was
Sarah Joseph, editor of emel, the Muslim lifestyle magazine. The bulk
of her thoughts surrounded the fact that with 3 kids, a full time job,
speaking engagements and some volunteer work she had become unfit, and
her solution was to get a pedometer and some decent shoes to walk in
and put it right by walking over 10,000 steps per day. It had made a
huge difference to her life, she was feeling fitter, had more energy
and enjoyed the challenge of going from 3,000 steps per day up to
10,000 and beyond.
It was the motivational value of her targets, and specifically the
need to have some data so that she knew if she had acheived her target
or not, that was most interesting to me. As we get older I have found
more and more of my friends getting unfit and becoming overweight. Much
like Sarah Joseph we all have busy lives, but those that are able to
fit some exercise into their lives have more energy, and stay slimmer!
The key motivator seems to be a target, whether that is running a half
marathon or riding 1000km it is reaching towards those targets that is
key, and setting some data points along the way so that the target it
not 6 months away. That is what we like to do with the Wattbike, set a
target work towards it, one pedal revolution at a time, and it is the
data feedback that keeps it interesting, can I average a few more Watts
each session, can I go further with the same average power (improve
efficiency), am I lighter, stronger, fitter, healthier. In the end
though it always comes down to one thing, does all this effort make me
happier, and if done right the answer is most certainly yes.
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