Although I live outside the city and rely on my car to get around, I still manage to get plenty of exercise. Each day, I ride a bus into NYC and then walk to work, which takes me about 25 minutes each way. However, I never knew the actual distance I was walking until I was handed Omron's Pocket Pedometer (HJ-720ITC) to test out.

Many pedometers require the user to wear it on their wrist or belt buckle. What I like about Omron's latest model is that you can just throw it in your bag or purse, and it's still capable of recording data due to dual sensor technology.

The Pocket Pedometer features an LCD screen and is capable of measuring your steps, aerobic movement, calories, and distance. The unit displays the total number of aerobic steps in a day as long as you walk more than 60 steps per minute and walk for more than 10 minutes continuously. You can rest for 1 minute, and the unit will still count that as continuous movement.

Find out more after the jump.

There are three buttons on the unit: Set, Mode/Event, and Memo. Use Set when first setting up the unit. Each time you press Mode/Event, you can view the number of steps you've taken, the number of aerobic steps, the calories you've burned, and the distance you've gone. It also shows a clock. The unit can store up to the previous 41 days you've used it, and display the most recent 7 days of data by pressing the Memo button. In order to see the previous 41 days, simply install the Omron Health Management Software to your computer, and connect the pedometer using the included USB cable.

The software lets me view my data in graphs and charts by day, week, month, year, and total. To download the most recent data from the unit to the software, click on Download Data. As long as you keep downloading your data every 41 days, it will all be stored in the software for review. You can also save your data to PDF or excel form and print it out. In one week, I took 30,479 steps, 19,689 aerobic steps, walked 8.63 miles, and burned 546 calories.

On the weekends, I'd forget to bring the pedometer with me while hiking or walking around Wal-Mart, but at least the data I was able to record is close to how much exercise I am really getting. I tried it once while jogging down the road, and it worked fine; so feel free to use it for either walking or jogging.

So how far do I walk to and from work each day? It's a total of about 2 miles. So, I'm guaranteed to get at least 10 miles of walking in a week. That's a lot more than most people get! Based on my experience with the Pocket Pedometer, I definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to keep track of how much they exercise. It's a great tool for people who want to lose weight, and watch how much they've progressed week after week.

Pick up Omron's HJ-720ITC Pocket Pedometer with Advanced Omron Health Management Software today for $32.95 at Amazon.com.

Aerobic Walking — Monthly

Fat Burned — Monthly

Calories Burned — Weekly

Distance — Weekly

Steps — Weekly