In my part-time work as a medical transcriptionist, I hear a lot of good advice from doctors on a daily basis. Much of the information I hear repeatedly (such as "quit smoking" and "exercise" and "lose weight"), but other things are new to me and I try to take them to heart. Such was the case a while ago when a doctor instructed her patient about walking 10,000 steps a day. This got me interested in seeing how many steps I usually walk and what it would take for me to get 10,000 too. So now I wear a pedometer.How far is 10,000 steps? Most people walk 2,000 steps per mile, so that's 5 miles a day. According to thewalkingsite.com, "A reasonable goal for most people is to increase average daily steps each week by 500 per day until you can easily average 10,000 per day."
According to this site, under 5,000 steps a day is considered a sedentary lifestyle; 5,000-7,499 steps is "low active"; 7,500-9,999 is "somewhat active"; 10,000 is "active"; and more than 12,500 steps is "highly active." It's been interesting for me to see reality right there on my pedometer and have that extra motivation to do more just to see those numbers go up. And I've found that the days I reach the highly active range (which so far hasn't been often enough) lead to better nights' sleep.
How many steps do you walk each day?
1 comment:
I would like to point out that not all pedometers are created equal. We've gotten lots of cheap ones for free and they don't always give great readings.
I used to wear a pedometer regularly and Dan and I would have step challenges. Now Dan and my son Scott have daily step challenges. I haven't worn one in a while and now I'm curious how many steps I take. :)
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