Steps a Day??

chels1605

Hey MFP'ers!

I'm kinda new to all this - one of my weekly goals has been to up my daily walking.... I walk around 4000 - 13,000 a day but I want to try and keep it at the higher end!

How many steps a day should I be doing to Maintain weight?
How many steps a day should I be doing to loose weight?


Chels x


(10st 7lbs, 5'6", Female, 23)

afteil

I think thats a fairly difficult question to answer, theres a lot of variables to it, depending on how fast you are walking, incline, etc. Like...if i walked really slowly on a level plane to where my heartrate was fairly low the whole time, I dont think I would burn as many calories as I would walking at a quicker pace on a level plane, or on an inclined plane. I think the best thing you could do is to get a heart rate monitor (which is what a lot of people suggest doing anyways) so that you can measure how many calories you burned during that walk, rather than focusing on how many steps you actually took.

Tiggermummy

In the uk the recomendation is 10,000 steps a day and to loose weight it is just recommended to eat less calories.

If I remember correctly they say about 600 caloris for the 10,000 steps.

hope this helps

emsibun

Hi

I've been walking to lose weight since I started my weight loss journey 9 months ago. I'm at the point now where I need to work hard when I walk and incorporate other cardio exercise into my week to feel the benefit from my exercise.

To be considered 'active' you need to walk 10,000 steps a day. It's the school holidays at the moment and I'm lucky if i get in 8,000 steps - plus the steps I am taking are much more leisurely with my children walking with me :laugh: I only wear my pedometer when I go out to walk. Others wear it all day. I have logged my activity level as 'lightly active' and don't consider housework and climbing up and down stairs etc at home as exercise to log. When I wear my pedometer (to go out, even with my kids) I log it though.

Outside of the holidays I will generally log between 14,000 and 20,000 steps out and about each day. This would be on two seperate walks, once in the morning and one after lunch. I make walking part of my day and never use a car. When I started out I consistently hit around 10,000 each day. I increased my pace and distance as I felt fitter.

I hope that helps! Please feel free to 'friend' me!

emsibun

I forgot to say - the way I increased my distance was simply by walking to places further away! I changed my routine to fit how much walking I needed to do. For example, I could go to sainsburys (half an hour walk) to buy carrots. I want to walk for at least an hour so I walk to a greengrocer further away instead.

Or maybe I have to go post a parcel. I take a longer route to the post office than I need to in order to be walking for longer.

Terri73

I walk a lot 4 half hour walks spread throughout the day (not through choice have school runs to do) but i love it. Its about 5 miles in total 2 of those are pushing the stroller one is walking leisurely pace and one is very fast walking. Noticing a difference in my legs.

bigmamma56

I have been following Nina Barough's 'Walking for Fitness' plans..if anybody is interested her book is available to buy from Amazon, There are many excellent walking programmes to choose from to suit your goals and lifestyle. Nina maintains that if the average person walks for 45 minutes four times a week without changing their diet in any way they can expect to lose 18lb's in a year...and I believe this theory has worked for me.
I have given up counting steps....I prefer to time myself...I power walk for a miniumum of 30 minutes every day and somedays I do the same route twice or if I am feeling energetic three times. (If I miss a day I do extra the next day to make up for it.)
I challenge myself to walk my chosen route as fast as I can and this motivates me to beat my time every time I go out.
Happy walking!