I do A LOT of walking everyday.  On a normal working day, I walk to the bus stop (it’s almost a mile-and-a-half from my apartment) and from the Big C bus terminal to my language school (another half-mile if I go the long/safer way).  My school is located in the basement of a four-floor shopping mall and I often wander around between classes or while looking for something to eat.

My rare free time also sees me walking the majority of the time; while I do take the local bus to work and the occasional after-hours motorbike taxi, I much prefer seeing the town at a slower pace not to mention ground-level.  I see so many things I would otherwise miss when whizzing by as a passenger.

In mid-October, I installed the Pedometer app by tayatau on my Android smartphone.  It took a bit of fiddling in the preferences but I soon got it to accurately measure my steps (based on the length of my stride and other factors such as age and weight).  November was the first full month of counting and I was amazed that I ended with 41.43 miles walked!  In the process, I burned 6,485.3 calories and spent a little over twenty-six and a half hours walking at an average of 1.5 miles per hour.

The daily screen on the app also graphs at what time of the day I am actually walking.  I can also set the app to automatically start tracking at a certain time of the day and automatically turn off at the end of the day.  It’s a small download, just 1.2 MB, and doesn’t seem to drain the battery when in use like some other pedometer apps I’ve read about.  Pedometer seems to work best when I carry the phone in my hand when walking rather than having it ride in my shirt pocket.  This might cause problems – a possibility of dropping the phone for one thing or having it become drenched in sweat if I start jogging or something.

All in all, this is a useful little app and I’m happy to see that I’m walking so much.  I think that if I can increase my walking and stop eating, I’ll finally start losing some weight!