step counters-Rant

So you don't think walking is a form of cardio? If he's doing 10 miles worth of walking, I think he's okay on the cardio in my opinion.

That's nice.

I think, honestly, a guy walking 10 miles a day at work is gonna be okay with or without your approval.


Signed,
Someone who doesn't 'cardio' by your standards

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Rant not acceptable!

Yeah, so apparently one of my main forms of exercise isn't acceptable to you. I suppose I'll have to learn to live with the disapproval of an otherwise anonymous person on the internet.

I use a pedometer (Fitbit) and I have a daily target that I hit by means of walking. The pedometer doesn’t know where I am walking from/to, nor does it make any allowances for the times I just get up from my desk, visit a colleague about 50-odd steps away then walk back & sit back down again. I am yet to be told by it that this isn’t an acceptable way of hitting my target and will have no positive effect on me.

However, I DO get to see how my fitness improves, my weight decreases week by week, etc. Now, this may have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the few occasions I walk to see colleagues, visit the toilet, walk upstairs to put my kids to bed, etc, but the bigger picture is that I am feeling fitter and healthier aswell as losing weight, so whether or not it’s acceptable to anybody else, it is perfectly acceptable to me.

One question though, what is a “false sense of fitness”? I fell fitter and am more active than I have been in years (granted, it’s more than just short trips that makes up my target, but it’s all part of the overall effect). Is this fitness real, or am I deluding myself?

What is there to rant about?

On a continuum of health benefits, walking 10,000 steps is better than sitting a chair all day, but it is not equivalent to a progressive workout program.

Locomotion is not the same as exercise. People have a tendency to vastly overestimate both the fitness/health value and the calorie burn of their casual activity.

As my two year old used to tell me, "be quieted!"

Hamster-on-a-wheel approach isn't the best either. To me the elliptical is an evil, evil beast. :bigsmile:

Movement = calories burnt so if you walk 100 steps or 10,000 you have still burnt calories = done cardio.IMO

10 miles at work is also a HUGE amount to walk in 8 hours. I assume he's a shift worker at a factory or something? I'd stop ranting at him and say that's damn good. If you two went on a hike in the forest, he'd probably be able to go further, faster than you can.

this ^^^

that many miles a day he must be some kind of manual worker. No way someone's going to walk 10 miles pottering around an office. I used to work as a postman years ago, I worked out that I must have walked at least 10 miles a day, i.e. all round the streets I had to deliver to, twice a day, plus going up and down each garden path. At least 10 miles. Yes, absolutely this is cardio. And considering I was paid by the day, not by the hour, I walked damn fast round those streets to be able to get home earlier. Even to this day I'm very fast at walking considering that I have really short legs - I think working as a postman had some lasting effect... maybe it taught me really good form for walking or something.

I used to work a very active job where I walked 10-15 miles a day. There was no need for me to do additional cardio. I'd go to the gym and strength train, but I hardly needed more cardio. By the end of the day, my legs couldn't take any more pounding anyway.