Tonight I took a quiz on Prevention magazine's Web site to find out what my "exercise personality" is. Turns out it's "spontaneous." According to my results, short but sweet activities that allow me to accumulate exercise time throughout the day are a good choice. That was funny to read considering the experiment I did today.

For many years now, I've rarely seen my Dad without his pedometer. He's worn it in various countries, to fancy restaurants, around his apartment in Charleston, S.C., around my East Village apartment, etc. Remember when the study came out about how we all need to walk 10,000 steps a day? Well, he took it quite seriously! Many days he pushes himself to get in an a few thousand more steps even when he's already done 10,000. It's actually a fun challenge, and whether I'm walking with him or not, I try hard to go the long way, take the stairs when possible, walk in circles around my office, essentially anything to get in those steps.

My Dad recently bought me a pedometer too, so for the purpose of this blog, I wore it from the moment I left my apartment at 8 a.m. to the moment I walked in the door at 10:00 p.m.

My day consisted of:
-Down three flights of stairs, then a six-minute walk to the subway, and a three-minute walk from subway to the office.
-20 minute walk at lunch.
-Various restroom trips, walks around the office, coffee break.
-Had time to kill after work, so I walked for 40 minutes before getting on the subway, and then walked about 10+ minutes to meet friends for dinner.
-Walked 10+ minutes to Madison Square Garden to see the Rangers play, then about that much on the way to the subway and then home and back up the stairs.

I can't speak to the pedometer's accuracy, but hopefully it's close to being on target!

Total Steps: Approx. 14,323
Total Miles: Approx. 5.65
Total Calories Burned: Approx. 609