In my quest this year for better health and trying to combat middle age spread or melt, as I like to think of it, I try each day to walk 10,000 steps.  I walk around the community in the morning and even some evenings and during the day I take as many steps as I can.  I even bought a pedometer to keep track of my steps and help keep me motivated for those 10,000 steps.  I am not sure why 10,000 steps is the magical number, but I am sure some expert somewhere came up with this number and it is now a standard that I strive to achieve.  I park further away than I have to when shopping, take the steps instead of the elevator and find myself randomly walking around the house.  When getting ready for bed at night I look at my pedometer to see just how many steps I took that day.  On average I am getting my 10,000 steps although some days I go over and some there are less.  On the days there are less I make a last-ditch effort to up my steps by circling the house a few times to add to my  number.  So for weeks now this has been my routine.  I drink almond milk instead of cows milk, eat no beef, just chicken and fish, drink green tea, eat plenty of fruit and have cut out pretty much all snacks.  So after weeks of doing this I see no change.  I feel the same and I look the same and I am not happy about it.  In fact, I  occasionally talk  to myself and my ‘trusty’ pedometer in my frustration.  While I guess this is my ‘plateau’  or what appears to be one,  maybe this is normal for ‘my age’.  It does not make me happy or easy to deal with.  Well I guess my cross words to my pedometer must have gotten the better of it for the other day, while in the restroom, the darn thing unclipped off my belt and was flushed  away, never to be seen again.  No more steps to register, it was gone in a second.  I felt bad I had lost my dear pedometer and even contemplated replacing it with a new one.  I changed my mind however, as I will now return to the way things use to be for me.  I will keep as busy and mobile as I possibly can.  I will eat what I want, but as always only in moderation and I will stop worrying about my middle age spread.  Maybe  this was the way I was meant to be so who am I to fight it?  It’s like fighting mother nature.   Maybe my pedometer knew this all along.  Maybe my pedometer had more to do with trying to put my mind at ease that middle age isn’t so bad and was trying to tell me this with its’ quick departure  rather than just counting all my steps.  I will never know, but for now I will live my life without my pedometer and see what happens not counting all of my steps.