Having control of your walking distances is a great start to start monitoring your daily activities. We recommend you use a pedometer or step counter phone application for calculating your daily distances. A pedometer is a great alternative to using GPS on your phone, it will help you to save battery. Either if you walk to your office or take a walk during your spare time as a daily routine, a pedometer can definitely give you an estimate of the distances you usually walk and the kcal you burn. This is a great way to start monitoring your daily habits. There are many pedometers for android phones and iphone. Just type the word step counter and you will find out many apps doing this job.
Here we give you an example of how to use Istep counter (moves/step tracker) from android market. Istep is a Pedometer or Step Counter that help you record your everyday steps. It can be set up to be working all the time no matter if your phone screen is on/off, and it is optimized to keep a low battery usage. It also provide a tracking tool for BMI and height/weight tracking. Also this information will be backed up online. You can set up any step targets to achieve per day, notify you if no movement detected, get some statistics per day/month/year, etc.
- 1. download istep from the link above
- 2. start the app and go to settings (icon at the bottom right corner)
- 3. Select auto start (the app will start automatically after switch in/off)
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4. Select your daily target (for example 4000 steps)(optional)
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5. Select your step-length. This depends on your height. Here is the configuration for a 180cms tall guy (~70-75cms/step). If it is a running activity the same person could have around 80-85cms step length. You should adjust this length accordingly.
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6. Select notification if any period of inactivity (for example 15mins)(optional)
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7. select your preferred measurement: metric or inch
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8. After this you are all set up and ready to go. During your walking you can pause the app during any period of inactivity. Later on you can click back on pause and continuing counting your steps. After you are done with your day you should stop the app and the day after start from scratch again and so on so forth.
Alternatively, you can use Smart Vibes, a free smart watch+pedometer+calorie calculator android app recently launched by Virtual Personal Trainer