The Walking Spondies

01/10/2025

I've entered my monthly step count into the Spondylitis Association of America step counter at the end of each month all year. September was a personal best. I hit my tiny measly goal 25 days out of 30 days.

It's huge for someone like me who has been struggling with the aftermath of international flights. I feel a lot of my movement in September was driven by fear. I'm still proud of it!

Carrie, Team Captain of The Walking Spondies

02/06/2025

With Walk Your A.S. Off – I just got recognized as one of their top fans! 🎉

02/06/2025

It appears that our team totals are in for the month of May! The Walking Spondies, by my calculations, took 1,295,365 steps

👣 If you haven't entered your steps yet, please do so asap!

💪Our team this year was comprised of:

an Energizer Bunny Granny (my mom),
my best friend Claire and her husband,
my husband John who got his steps with rolling in his manual wheelchair while recovering from surgery,
and little old me!

These members still do things the old school way with team spreadsheets.

❗I hit my tiny step goal almost every day this month and starting tracking activity minutes.

✨We are the little team that CAN when you consider what our team members went through in May. I'm so proud of you, WalkStars!

Here are some photos I collected this month from members who were ok with submitting them.

Walk Your A.S. Off x My Several Worlds - Chronic Pain and Disability Awareness x Spondylitis Association of America

30/05/2025

I wish I had thought to share this for Walk Your A.S. Off at the beginning of May. It slipped my mind. Glad I can share it now and I hope it arms you with the knowledge to keep moving.

Walking is difficult for me. Remember you can reap rewards by moving other parts of your body!



Walking by the Minutes

👣 1 minute
Makes you more likely to have a waist circumference 4 cm smaller than someone who sits all day

👣 2 minutes
Activates the genes responsible for metabolizing fat and carbohydrates, and activates anti-inflammatory sign

👣 3 minutes
Lowers blood pressure and triglyceride levels after a meal

👣 5 minutes in nature
Improves self-esteem by 46% and mood by 54%

👣 6 minutes at a brisk pace
Correlates to better memory and logic and more gray matter in the brain in older adults

👣 5-10 minutes
Increases creative thinking and creative problem-solving by 60%

👣 15 minutes after a meal
Significantly lowers blood sugar levels and reduces diabetes risk

👣 20 minutes daily
Increases bone density in post-menopausal women

👣 30 minutes after a meal
Leads to 3 to 6 lb weight loss, depending on walking speed

👣 30 minutes
May improve executive functioning and relieve symptoms of depression as effectively as prescription anti-depressants, and reduces risk of stroke 30%

👣 40 minutes
Cuts risk of coronary heart disease in half in elderly men

👣 45 minutes
Reduces inflammatory markers and adipose tissue in thighs and belly

👣 50 minutes
Reduces inflammation and cell damage in older adults

👣 60 minutes per day
Reduces breast cancer risk by 14%

👣 90 minutes in nature
Decreases depressive thoughts and reduces activity in the area of the brain linked to risk for mental illness

👣 150 minutes per week
Burns 560 calories for a 165 pound adult

👣 150 minutes per week
Reduces body weight. BMI, and blood pressure

👣 240 minutes per week
Reduces risk of hip fracture by
43% in men

👣 450 minutes per week
Ups life expectancy by 4.5 years

Credit: The little shine.com

My Several Worlds - Chronic Pain and Disability Awareness x Spondylitis Association of America

28/05/2025

May is almost at an end. I couldn't do much walking so my 75 year young mom did it for me. Here's me with my shirt after the hospital this week and photos from my mom's walks in Carleton Place and at our cottage in North Bay.

My mom is Co-Captain of The Walking Spondies. You can see she had a great year with while highlighting that we never walk alone!

Taiwan and Canada represent!
🇹🇼🇨🇦

26/05/2025

Hey WalkStars. It's time to log your steps for Walk Your A.S. Off with Spondylitis Association of America

We are walking and moving to raise awareness for !

started moving to raise awareness for in 2013.

Even then, my harsh reality was very little time on my feet. With my joints, especially my knees, a wheelchair was inevitable.

I kept going as long as I could and was able to maintain between 1,500 and 3,000 steps per day until 2021 when I came out of remission for a fourth time and experienced serious damage to my legs.

I'm cheering from the sidelines while my teammates walk for me and trying to keep my activity going in other ways.

Learn more about how you can submit your steps and activity this month for The Walking Spondies. You can also log your steps and activity year-round like I do.

Contact Carrie Kellenberger for more information.

Learn more in the comments
👇

25/05/2025

Sean and Richard from Spondylitis Association of America showing off their Walk Your A.S. Off swag as we move into this last week of May!

25/05/2025

National Axial Spondyloarthritis Society Orange Apples and AS Buzzers working their magic for Walk Your A.S. Off and for AxSpA awareness. Goooo team!

We have already reached the last week of this year's Walk Your AS Off!

For the past 3 weeks, NASS supporters, SAA supporters and hundreds of others around the globe have come together and logged their steps to raise awareness and funds for people living with axial SpA.

For this last week, we are calling out for your support. This year, Gillian and the NASS Orange Apples Team have been working hard to spread the word and fundraise, by sharing their page with their friends and family and on social media. We have raised an amazing £1,408 so far!

If you can, please support our NASS Orange Apples team by donating and sharing our fundraising page: https://buff.ly/QyFh7gq

The two NASS teams, AS Buzzers and Orange Apples, have collectivelly logged an astounding 9,598,679 steps so far! 🤯 That is roughly as if we had walked all the way to the city of Grenada in the Caribbean!

Let's keep going and maybe get to an even sunnier destination? Don't forget to log your steps before 31 May to contribute to the grand total!

Thank you to everyone who has taken part and we hope that you have been enjoying every step in the sunshine. ☀️

17/05/2025

National Axial Spondyloarthritis Society Orange Apples are kicking some AS for Walk Your A.S. Off! Bravo to all you WalkStars!

It's been two weeks since thousands of people around the globe have started logging their steps to raise awareness and funds for people with axial SpA, in celebration of World AS Month.

Team AS Buzzers have logged 1,323,400 steps so far, and the NASS Orange Apples have recorded 2,290,483 steps, totaling 3,613,883 steps for the NASS community! What an incredible achievement so far! 🤩

Thank you to everyone taking part so far! Join us, get your NASS t-shirt, log your steps and share your photos! Find out more: https://buff.ly/a9IbpL7

If you feel like you can, please support the NASS Orange Apples fundraising page by donating or sharing it: https://buff.ly/JXFEUcd

So far they have raised an incredible £1,125! Thank you so much for your fantastic work, and to everyone who has supported the team so far. 🧡

03/06/2024

I MAY or MAY not have enough awareness t-shirts for May. This is over a decade of t-shirts, some of which are fragile. I just finishing packing most of them up for next year. (You know I raise awareness year-round but at this point I need to save some of my older t-shirts as they're classics!

What do you think of my collection? Have you logged your steps for The Walking Spondies for May?



Chronically yours,
Carrie, My Several Worlds

03/06/2024

Attention . Please make sure you log your steps for The Walking Spondies for May 2024. To date, we have more than 10 million steps logged with the team in May!
💙👣👣👣💙

Unfortunately, when our data transferred from previous walk years under the site, our team members landed under a team called Bear It For Jerrit. That means you need to leave that team when you log in (bottom of the step page) and then navigate to The Walking Spondies.

I've been able to move a few of our team members over to the proper team. I'm checking every day now for team approvals.

So sorry for the extra work, but it's all for a great cause! If you can't figure it out, send me a message and I'll log your steps for you under our team account.

Chronically yours,
Carrie, Team Captain of The Walking Spondies 2014-2024

We walked for axSpA awareness in May for Walk Your A.S. Off and the Spondylitis Association of America!

31/05/2024

We're so thrilled to be able to announce that team member and my dear friend Gina Catalano Holbrook and her fellow teachers and students at Central Crossing High School in Ohio have done it again!

They walked 8,261,927 steps in May for The Walking Spondies and for Walk Your A.S. Off and Spondylitis Association of America!

Gina has her students do this every year and we are always so grateful to see schools joining us in raising awareness for Axial Spondyloarthritis awareness each May!

THANK YOU FOR WALKING THROUGH THE STARS WITH US ONCE AGAIN IN 2024!