Stride math

After being gypped 0.2 miles on Friday (my Vivofit3 counting steps vs his Forerunner45 using GLONASS+GPS), I started trying to figure out how to get a more accurate estimate for my stride.

Unfortunately Garmin doesn’t report the steps per activity, at least for a Vivofit3. But it does have the ability to display steps during an activity. (Note – the settings make it look like you can choose to see both estimated distance AND steps on the little screen but toggling “activity distance” *on* in practice toggles “activity steps” *off*, and vice versa.)

So, *armed* with this knowledge (pun partially intended) and with the Vivofit3 set to display steps, H and I took a walk together, clocking “start” simultaneously and pausing at the end long enough for the Vivofit3 to catch up with its step count:

There. Now we have a more accurate distance, coupled with the step count the Vivofit3 clocked. (The Vivofit3 thinks we only went 0.92 miles 😡)

The Connect phone app will calculate stride but it needs the distance in feet. so we do a conversion.

Technically I could have converted to km and m, but this is Amurika, where we continue to insist on using an outdated pre-Napoleonic system of measurement that pretty much the rest of the world has wisely abandoned decades ago. Don’t get me started on that…

So now, as soon as Garmin resolves its outage 🙄, I can upload my stride to my Vivofit3 and get proper credit for my distances. At least for 1 mi walks on level dirt roads… LOL All bets are off if the walks are longer and I’m tired or going up a grade. 😏 By the time that will matter, I’ll be ready for my own gps tracker.

Caterpillars and Badges

This one is inspired by ALICIA363. Here are my badges and caterpillars! 😁

Garmin likes to gameify incentives to move and we could get a “point” for earning a “badge” for doing a 3-mile “walk” this weekend. I need two “points” to go from “level 2” to “level 3.” (Can you tell from my quotes I’m a looking a little askance at this gamification stuff? LOL). Still, it got me out there, so there’s that.

So I decided to go for it. I haven’t walked that far all at once in a long while. And I only really started walking much at all again, in February.

So it was going to be a challenge but I suspected I could manage it. I was right.

Along the way there was a lot of milkweed. Instead of looking for frass on the ground, I just looked for chewed leaves. And once we started seeing that, there were monarch caterpillars EVERYWHERE!

It’s pretty scenic in places, too. I was glad we brought bug swatters because the mosquitoes were pretty thick in some places, and every once in a while a deer fly would buzz above my left ear. I had one following me like that for a quarter mile, before I got it.

I also discovered that my stride must be set wrong on my vivofit. H was along too, and his Forerunner has GPS. His watch says we went 3.37 miles. The vivofit (which just counts steps) says we went 3.17 miles. I have some math to do!

Overall, not a bad excursion. A little sore, but in a good way. And I got to see stuff. 😀

Update: DOVESEYES’ comment intrigued me. I had no idea there were monarchs in Oz and NZ!

Monarch distribution map from Wikipedia

How to comment on a WordPress blog

Eileen (BROOKLYN_BORN) has requested instructions for commenting on this blog. So I opened up Microsoft Edge, and and took some screenshots of the process, the way it will look for someone who is not logged into a browser. Hope this helps!

First, navigate to the blog of interest. Click on the title of the post you want to read / comment on.

When the blog post is open, scroll down to the comments section, which will start with, “X (number) of thoughts on [Post title]”

If there are already comments, you may need to scroll further, down to the bottom of the comment section

You’re in the right place when you see, “Leave a Reply” and a box for entering text

As soon as you start typing in the comment box, options for identifying yourself will appear.

You can click the WordPress, Google, Twitter, or Facebook icons to use your identity on one of those platforms. Note that those of you using Blogger/Blogspot will by definition have Google accounts, since Google runs that platform. You may find that you’re already logged into Google as yourself in your browser because of this, and some fields might already be filled in.

If you are logged into any of those platforms, you will see a note underneath the comment box telling you which account you’re currently logged in as, and giving you the option to log out and/or enter the fields manually, by clicking “Change”.

If you’re not currently logged into any of those platforms listed, you can manually fill in your email, name, and blog URL. You also have the option to subscribe to any other comments on this post, or to the blog as a whole. (Either with the check box on the left, or the “Follow” box on the right).

When you are finished typing in your comment and choosing any subscription options, click “POST COMMENT.”

After you click “POST COMMENT,” the owner of the blog will receive a notification to approve your comment. Currently this blog is set to only require approval the first time someone comments, after that, comments will appear immediately. If your comment requires approval, you’ll get a notification of that.

Once the comment is approved, it’ll show up in the normal way with all of the others.

Starting over, over here

Another Sparkpeople refugee. Working on moving my old blogs, both from SP, and from my old WordPress account, to this spot.

In the meantime, here’s an index of my old SP posts: http://tinyurl.com/4a-healthy-bmi-index

And here’s a link to my pre-SP blog: https://origamifreak.wordpress.com

…and here is a link to the Google group for maintainers and aspiring maintainers where I hang out, most of the time: http://tinyurl.com/Maintain-weight-start-page