take the stairs instead of the elevator

Now that I live on the second floor of our house (in the attic), I do stairs all the time. Also I get a chance to skip the elevator and use the stairs whenever I visit my Mom at her office. Although the elevator is tempting, I climb the stairs every time.

I have to give up this goal for now. I really can’t make myself do this EVER these days. I am a little like a car with a very small gas tank – I only have so much energy between fillups, and I have to be very careful where I spend my steps and my energy. I’ll re-add once I have some daily zip back.

It seems like I’ve completely hit the wall as far as energy goes. I tell myself that it doesn’t really require any extra energy to go down the stairs and I allow myself to take the elevator up. It’s not ideal, and it’s not what I had in mind when I set this goal … but I intend to stick to that if nothing else until chemo’s over. Stairs down, elevator up – it’s my cancer compromise. I’ve been making a LOT of them.

At school the library is on the 1st floor then floors 5-10. Though it can be a long climb to say floor 9, I take the stairs. It’s pathetic seeing the hugely long line for the elevators. Once I went down the stairs at the same time someone went into an elevator to go down to floor 1 and they only got there about 10 seconds before I did. It’s no faster at all. Why wait 10 minutes to take an elevator when you can climb the stairs in 2 minutes and get exercise? Now, I must admit, there have been times when I took the elevator. But those were times when my backpack weighed a ton and the line was short. Nearly 100% of the time I do take the stairs.

I did at least two trips up and down from 2nd floor today, and two straight down to one, thinking I could up my step count easily that way. I can’t even read my results this whole first week, and the first day, I’m already making changes. Cool.

I have been quite good about this, this week. I even made up a few trips to the second floor so I could go up and down the stairs. I might start to use that photocopier more often … or even all the time, just for the exercise.

I just had to prime the pump. When I can go three flights without “jelly legs” perhaps I will call this done.

Just like the flossing chart, I have made a stair chart. It’s slightly different because instead of getting a smiley face or an X, I am counting the number of times I use the stairs for each day.

I’m not counting the times I use the elevator when I have a cart of books. But I also won’t get the books every time I want to go upstairs so I can have an excuse to be lazy

Although I give myself leeway on the up 4 flights at once, I try to take the stairs every other time. Maybe I’ll just get in the habit – there are times I push the elevator button, stand and wait for a few minutes, and then get disgusted with myself and run up/down the stairs before the elevator arrives. I’m proud of those times, especially since I’m feeling so tired one week out of every two these days.

At work, I decided to only take the elevator when I had a cart full of books. Using the stairs would be impossible in this case. I thought this would get me using the stairs more. Instead—I am hauling more carts around. My boss will like this arrangement but man.. I can’t believe how much work I put into being lazy.