I am out beating the pavement with my new pedometer.

Recently, I read an article claiming that by taking 10,000 steps per day, a person can lose weight, improve muscle tone, increase lung capacity, cut the risk of stroke, lower blood pressure and possibly grow new neurons in the brain.

Decrease my girth AND replace the brain cells I killed in the ’70s? Count me in!

But calculating every step isn’t as easy as one might think. Neither is chalking up 10,000 strides in a single day. If I were going to reach this lofty goal, I’d have to make every step count.

As soon as the alarm rang this morning, I attached the pedometer to my robe for the long walk to the bathroom.

Eighteen steps?! Is that all?

After my shower, I clipped the counter onto my towel and padded off to the kitchen for a protein shake to help me go the distance. I slammed down the drink and checked my meter.

Wait a minute! Only 30 steps? But the trip from the bathroom to the kitchen is MUCH longer than from the bed to the shower. How can this be? The pedometer must not be sensitive enough for my dainty gait.

Still 9,970 steps to go. I couldn’t afford to tread lightly. I tramped like King Kong back to my bedroom and got dressed for work.

Arriving at my building, I parked as far away as possible and strode with purpose toward the door. With my eyes fixated on the pedometer hanging from the front pocket of my pants, I nearly ran head-on into a utility truck. (Note to self: People with obsessive-compulsive tendencies should avoid wearing personal digital instruments in heavy traffic.)

Two hundred eighty steps later, I reached my desk with a cumulative total of 812. I had my work cut out for me.

I spent the next hour figuring out how many steps I could reasonably expect to take in the coming workday. Suddenly, I was reminded of those annoying thought problems from third-grade math class:

Cathy takes 45 steps, one-way, to go from her desk to the upstairs restroom. She uses 220 steps, round-trip, when using the downstairs restroom. If the average number of trips to the restroom per day is six (Cathy drinks a lot of water), how many steps will her pedometer show if she uses the upstairs bathroom twice and the downstairs bathroom four times?

Answer: 1,060

I did the arithmetic: 1,060 steps to the bathroom over the course of the day, 305 steps to and from the mailroom, another 436 to the car and back for lunch, 500 spent visiting co-workers and attending meetings. That’s a grand total of 3,113 steps.

To quote Peggy Lee, is that all there is?

I refused to panic. I was just going to have to get creative, that’s all.

Increasing my water intake, I added two more restroom trips to my routine for 440 steps. For an additional 710, I retrieved my correspondence from the mailroom, one piece at a time. After lunch, I took breaks on the hour and walked around the block for an extra 1,782. By five o’clock, my pedometer read just 6,045 and I hadn’t gotten a single thing accomplished at work.

I traipsed back to my car, burning another 280 steps in the process. I was down for the count but not out of the race.

I stopped by the grocery store: 790 steps. Running total: 7,115

“I’ll just knock out the rest on a nice walk after dinner,” I thought to myself.

And that’s exactly what I did. I tied on my walking shoes and hit the road. I walked all over the neighborhood and onto streets I’d never dared to tread. I walked long and hard, making sure every last step registered on the device that now felt like part of my anatomy. Exhausted, I trudged home and plopped down on the grass next to the sidewalk for a much-needed rest. I unhooked the pedometer from my waist, confident I had exceeded the required sum.

Nine thousand nine hundred sixty?!! Are you kidding me?!

And that’s why I’m pounding the pavement with my pedometer. Oh, I gave up walking. I’ve resorted to literally slamming the thing into the ground, over and over with my hand. It seems to be working. The numbers are rising with every blow.

And you know what? I feel better already. In fact, this is the healthiest I’ve felt all day.