A while back, I learned about the health benefits of walking 10,000 steps a day. I try to walk about four miles a day which gives me the 10,000 steps I need. Of course, when it gets colder, and that’s happening now, it is hard to get motivated to go out there and to walk all of those steps. If and when your feet get cold, it’s not so easy to keep on going, yet it’s pretty important that you do just that. Some folks wear two layers of socks. I find that good shoes and a single pair of socks does the trick. When the temperature heads toward zero, your toes can really fight back.
If you want to survive, you do what you can to keep on going. My daily four miles seems sufficient, assuming that I can move fast enough. However, if it turns out that it is so cold outside that your toes start to freeze, your exercise program can suffer, so it’s an absolute necessity that you find ways to keep going. When it gets really cold outside, I can go to the gym and walk there. Of course, walking on a track poses certain risks, not the least of which is that you can get dizzy walking around in circles. In order to make it work, you have to play a certain number of games. At the very least, you can sing to yourself or even sing out loud.
You really do have to be careful with the sort of shoes you wear. If your big right toe should rub up against the side of your shoe, you can really do damage to your foot. So, it stands to reason that you have to buy shoes that provide what we might call “breathing space.” You really need to get correctly fitted when buying your shoes, and that is not always so easy. I know that I get up and try to walk in a pair of new shoes. Theoretically, when you break in a pair of shoes, that original walking should do the trick. Of course, it doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes it turns out that those original steps aren’t enough or that it isn’t long before you realize that something just ain’t right. That’s why it’s probably a good idea to buy your shoes in a place where the people doing the fitting really know their stuff.
We all know that an ill-fitting shoe can mess up your feet in several different places. There is that already mentioned front of the shoe, particularly on the side where the big toe lives. But we also know that there are times when war can break out between your toes. If the toes climb up on top of each other, things can get very unpleasant. A lot has to do with the state of your toe nails. If the nails grow too long, they can dig into the toe next door and that can turn out to be quite painful.
The point here is that our lives can be made miserable just because we don’t pay attention to the simple act of cutting our nails. I know that in my house, my lack of proper attention to my nails was called to my attention by my significant other who was the recipient to my nail diving into her skin. So, we really do have to pay attention, even to the triviality of how long our toenails have grown. In some cases, we can rely on our bed mates to warn us that things have gotten out of hand (or foot).
In my case, I have a wonderful person, discovered by my wife, who keeps my toes in order. It’s expensive but worth it. You really have to be careful.
