10,000 Steps really??????
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I used to work from home in a small apartment and even when I went for a 70 minutes walk at lunch and to the gym at night, I wouldn't break 10,000 steps. I'm getting more steps now that I live in a bigger house, but in the past 28 days have only broke 10,000 once. Ironically, none of those steps were from intentional exercise but from errands and going to an outdoor exhibit that entailed walking.
If I worked in an office I could do things to increase steps like park further away from the door and use a distant bathroom. I'm 9 steps from my bathroom now. However, I can garden at lunchtime
I don't get many steps from gardening, but I do get a better burn than from walking.
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tylervigen wrote: »To answer your other question: 10,000 steps is about 4.7 miles (assuming a 30in step). Jogging 4.7 miles at a leisurely pace would take less than an hour and would be an even better approach to the same goal.
That is not at all true. There are numerous scientific studies showing steady-state cardio at moderate intensity does not work if your goal is solely fat loss. The author of the topic is 39yo, stay-at-home mom with a desk job and thyroid issues -- so for her case, walking is much better than jogging. Yes, jogging 5 miles will expend more calorie than walking but realistically not as much as you think. Maybe an extra 100-150 calories. The bad part is you also stressed the body much more. Stress hormones (such as Cortisol and Adrenaline) will become elevated leading to more harm than good in the long run (at least in the person's case posting the topic).
I live along the beach and literally see hundreds (if not thousands) of people "leisurely jogging" daily. Most (there are exceptions) of them that are over 30 years of age have the following in common: look to be struggling, incorrect form and tensed shoulders/arms, and are FAT in some way. Those under 30, well they look better because their hormones are still in balance not because they are out jogging.
The science has been proven that if a very healthy individual sprints for 30 seconds, rests for a few minutes, then repeats over a 20-minute period this will significantly "burn" more bodyfat in the long run than someone who jogs/does steady-state cardio over a 1-hour period of time. You do not see other animals out in the wild "going for a jog". They are either going all out chasing/fleeing for a very short amount of time, the rest of the time walking or laying down.
key being "very healthy individual"
It's also been proven that walking for an hour is better in the long run than running for 20mins..
but that has nothing to do with getting in the 10k steps...2 -
RemarkablyUnremarkable wrote: »I have a general question about fitness. I am steadily losing from 2-2.65 pounds a week apprx. So I am losing, I am working out a minimum of 40 minutes a day. I am trying to build on that a little each week as well. I am fairly sedentary ( I think). I am a stay at home Mom of a five year old, the other kids are in various stages of education up to college. I also own my own business and work from home, much of what I do is on the computer.
My question is... Is 10,000 steps really the end all of how fit you are? When I worked at the hospital I did that and more. Now, I find it really hard to rack up the steps. My activity tracker goes off every 15 minutes and I am thinking, I am SMACK in the middle of a design UGH! I feel like in between sitting at the computer for work, then packing orders, house work, laundry, shopping, picking up kids I am constantly going from the moment I open my eyes until I collapse in the bed late night. My overall goal is to lose the excess weight and be fit. I want to be able to go on runs etc. Can an hour a day of working out get me there?
@RemarkablyUnremarkable how much weight do you have to lose? Unless it's over 100 pounds, 2 - 2.65 pounds a week is too fast.
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10K steps will not make you an athlete, but it will absolutely improve the health of someone with a sedentary lifestyle even if you think it is a marketing gimmick.12
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RemarkablyUnremarkable wrote: »I have a general question about fitness. I am steadily losing from 2-2.65 pounds a week apprx. So I am losing, I am working out a minimum of 40 minutes a day. I am trying to build on that a little each week as well. I am fairly sedentary ( I think). I am a stay at home Mom of a five year old, the other kids are in various stages of education up to college. I also own my own business and work from home, much of what I do is on the computer.
My question is... Is 10,000 steps really the end all of how fit you are? When I worked at the hospital I did that and more. Now, I find it really hard to rack up the steps. My activity tracker goes off every 15 minutes and I am thinking, I am SMACK in the middle of a design UGH! I feel like in between sitting at the computer for work, then packing orders, house work, laundry, shopping, picking up kids I am constantly going from the moment I open my eyes until I collapse in the bed late night. My overall goal is to lose the excess weight and be fit. I want to be able to go on runs etc. Can an hour a day of working out get me there?
For me, it's about 2,000 steps per mile. If I walk to the bathroom and back to my desk once an hour at work, plus the walks to and from my car, I get about 2,200 steps in -- not counting getting ready in the morning and other miscellaneous walking. If I take a one-hour walk during the day, I easily end up around 13,000 steps with all of that.
So, yes, one hour of exercise a day is plenty.
And as other have said, if you're doing other exercise you might be short on steps, but that doesn't mean you aren't doing what you need to do.
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RemarkablyUnremarkable wrote: »I have a general question about fitness. I am steadily losing from 2-2.65 pounds a week apprx. So I am losing, I am working out a minimum of 40 minutes a day. I am trying to build on that a little each week as well. I am fairly sedentary ( I think). I am a stay at home Mom of a five year old, the other kids are in various stages of education up to college. I also own my own business and work from home, much of what I do is on the computer.
My question is... Is 10,000 steps really the end all of how fit you are? When I worked at the hospital I did that and more. Now, I find it really hard to rack up the steps. My activity tracker goes off every 15 minutes and I am thinking, I am SMACK in the middle of a design UGH! I feel like in between sitting at the computer for work, then packing orders, house work, laundry, shopping, picking up kids I am constantly going from the moment I open my eyes until I collapse in the bed late night. My overall goal is to lose the excess weight and be fit. I want to be able to go on runs etc. Can an hour a day of working out get me there?
The 10000 steps has to do with activity, not fitness. Personally I think most people under realize the importance of NEAT which is what the 10000 steps would have to do with.1 -
NanCaudill wrote: »yesterday my tracker went off telling me I had reached 10,000 steps... uh I was at my desk all day. However, i was crocheting with it on. Apparently my crochet form makes my tracker think Im walking!
One day last summer, I walked the dog 3 miles before going strawberry picking. While I was on my knees picking, my tracker registered my 10,000th step! So arm movements definitely effect the tracker's step counts.
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I doubt I hit 3000 in a day if I take out my treadmill time. Desk job as well. Much more when it warms up, but between the cold and the dark, I just have no desire to go for a walk when I get home.0
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cschmitz110515 wrote: »NanCaudill wrote: »yesterday my tracker went off telling me I had reached 10,000 steps... uh I was at my desk all day. However, i was crocheting with it on. Apparently my crochet form makes my tracker think Im walking!
One day last summer, I walked the dog 3 miles before going strawberry picking. While I was on my knees picking, my tracker registered my 10,000th step! So arm movements definitely effect the tracker's step counts.
This is why I hate trackers. I dread the day pedometers no longer exist.0 -
It's 1030 and I'm up to about 6k already, which is really kind of meaningless other than letting me know I am indeed able to ,move under my own power, but one thing that would be nice is if this thing were able to accurately measure my 5lb (I weighed them) work boots I wear 12 hours a day, and the various equipment I carry all day often up and down stairs at construction sites.
I'll have to set new goals for my fitbit - 7500 steps kind of wears me out on a regular work day lol.0 -
10 000 steps is 300 calories more I get to eat.
I thought it was a lot but realized I walk 5000 steps already part of my normal day. Another 5000 is going for a walk at lunch. It racks up pretty easily. 2 -
When I'm NOT at the gym, I am literally the laziest POS I know. I am always on my *kitten*, at the computer or watching tv. I take naps all day. This held true even throughout my bikini competition prep, and I took 6th place (one spot away from a trophy).
So no, 10,000 steps is not the end-all of how fit you are. Not even close. This is why I think activity trackers without HRMs are a waste. They don't really give the big picture. I guess they're ok for people just starting out, though. If it helps you, then keep it around.2 -
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33154510
Some excerpts...the concept of 10,000 steps originated in Japan in the run-up to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, says Catrine Tudor-Locke, an associate professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre at Louisiana State University.
Pedometers became all the rage in the country as Olympic fever swept through Japanese society. One company came out with a device called a manpo-kei, which means 10,000 step meter.
"It was a business slogan, like 'Just Do It' for Nike, but it resonated with people," Tudor-Locke says.
Since then 10,000 steps has become a commonly-acknowledged goal for daily fitness across the world.The target appears to be a relatively arbitrary figure. Human, another iOS app, inspires users to be active for 30 minutes a day instead. But the 10,000-steps-a-day goal does have some basis in scientific advice.
Also, 10,000 steps is "a nice, round number" - much like Malcolm Gladwell's much-lauded promise that 10,000 hours of practice in any field is sufficient to make you an expert - even if the reality is much more nuanced.
It "latches onto people better than the vague 7,000 to 8,000 number", says Laura Williams, a diet and fitness expert. As well as being easily digestible, it's challenging while also realistic.
"For most people, 150 minutes of exercise a week sounds like an awful lot," she adds.
But the 10,000 steps figure need not be taken too literally. For one thing, not all steps are equal.
Don't get too hung up on it...it's a decent target, but it's right up there with drink 8 glasses of water, etc...it's rather arbitrary and not really meant to be a "must" do.
I rarely get in 10,000 steps or more save for maybe the weekend...but I spend about 3 hours per week lifting and anywhere from about 6-10 hours per week on my bike plus walking about three miles or so a few days per week...I'm not too hung up on the actual steps, I'm pretty fit without obsessing about that arbitrary number.1 -
Some days I don't even pass 2000 and I'm still losing lmao.1
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Its a means to an end. Its not an end. There are lots of other means to get to that "end." (Fitness, being the "end" here, which interestingly enough, is not a state of being, but both a way of living and a non-static status.) Too much philosophy here. Sorry.1
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Sorry for the multiple responses, but its not even a highly effective means to get to a state of fitness. Its good at getting couch potatoes off the couch, but if you want to get fit, walking 10,000 steps a day is not going to do it.0
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Here I am actually embarrassed or ashamed that I changed my daily goal to 7K because I felt that was more realistic for me than 10K. I have to really stretch myself after work to do that. I have a desk job as well. I walk down the hallway when I can.0
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Here I am actually embarrassed or ashamed that I changed my daily goal to 7K because I felt that was more realistic for me than 10K. I have to really stretch myself after work to do that. I have a desk job as well. I walk down the hallway when I can.
Well the good news is that you don't have to get too hung up on it...it's just some arbitrary recommendation that came out of a marketing gimmick.3 -
endlessfall16 wrote: »Christine_72 wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »Christine_72 wrote: »If you want to be entertained, check out the forums on the fitbit site, especially the multiple-year threads titled "How Can Anyone Do [50,000, 80,000, some other random number] Steps In A Day?????" And people who join contests on the internet with people who may or may not exist, and complain that people are cheating.
Hhmmm I had a few of those in my last challenge. I swear some of them put their fitbits in the tumble dryer or something to get 50+k steps 7 days a damn week!
50k+ a day all week??? OMG having done 50k once and wanting to die I can't imagine doing that every day. Admittedly I didn't take enough decent rest breaks that day and was battling high winds (which is tiring as hell) but still...I am planning to do a 55k day over my summer break to get that badge but I will be planning it really carefully and you can bet the next day will be a rest day.
Yep! I asked one of them how they did it, and they replied "walks around the neighborhood in the morning and evening ". I felt like asking if they lived in the middle of Africa lol
I bet that takes a form of obsession (with fitness), patience and a ton of free time. I walk 3 rounds around my workplace parking lot and it completes 10k. I don't feel tired but feel time standing still.
The difficulty with alot of exercises isn't in the physical act itself. Sometimes the physical "exhaustion" can even be addictive (that's why people drop dead from overexhaustion without being aware, which is something I always dread when I push my limit) It's the mind and other mental conditioning that put up the blockage.
I agree completely. It's very very very difficult for me to walk on a treadmill. Almost impossible for any length of time. I feel like a hamster on a wheel. Around my neighborhood, it's interesting to see peoples' gardens change - this time of year there's nothing but pansies and kale, but things start coming up in the spring and change until the frosts come. Get me on a trail and I can do 15 miles in a day, then stay up late going through the pictures. I don't understand indoor cycling but you should see how much of the map I've covered on my road bike.3 -
MeanderingMammal wrote: »Christine_72 wrote: »Yep! I asked one of them how they did it, and they replied "walks around the neighborhood in the morning and evening ". I felt like asking if they lived in the middle of Africa lol
On my last marahon I did 51k steps, my last Ultra was 74k steps.
There is no way people are sustaining that kind of mileage unless they're training for something.
Or they're hiking.
Anish hiked the Pacific Crest Trail a few years ago, it's 2,650 miles long, from Mexico to Canada. She spent 60 days doing it. That's about 45 miles per day, on average, with about 5,000 feet of elevation gain, again per day.
Here's what she says about there being no way a person can walk much, day after day:
“I was inactive at that time, I was overweight and didn’t exercise and didn’t really know anything about hiking. I started going to weight rooms and running and reading anything I could find.”
“When I first did the Appalachian Trail there were no other thru-hikers around because I had such a late start. I didn’t have a lot of information about the trail or about thru-hiking beforehand, so I had no concept of what an average hiking day was. To me, in my head, I thought, ‘I guess somewhere between 20 and 30 miles a day sounds reasonable.’ So I’m doing 20-30 miles a day and I’m blowing past everyone and they’re saying ‘What are you doing? Nobody does that! We all do about 15-20!’ So I responded, ‘Why do you guys only do that much?’ I didn’t have this artificial limitation on myself.”
Now, I haven't done such a long hike, but I've been out up to a week at a time. When you've got nothing to do but explore a beautiful place, it's amazing how much you can walk, day after lovely day.
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NorthCascades wrote: »MeanderingMammal wrote: »Christine_72 wrote: »Yep! I asked one of them how they did it, and they replied "walks around the neighborhood in the morning and evening ". I felt like asking if they lived in the middle of Africa lol
On my last marahon I did 51k steps, my last Ultra was 74k steps.
There is no way people are sustaining that kind of mileage unless they're training for something.
Or they're hiking.
So not onwalks around the neighbourhood
Whilst i wouldn't disagree in principle I wouldn't imagine there are many, and they're unlikely to be frequenting the FitBit forums getting worked up about winning challenges.3 -
I used to work for a Wellness company and we used 7,000 which is the CDC recommendation. It's what MFP uses as well. The 10,000 came from Weight Watchers.0
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Tacklewasher wrote: »
When I log into my MFP app it says 7,000 up at the top. Plus if I reach 7K it tells me I met my step goals for the day.0 -
MeanderingMammal wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »MeanderingMammal wrote: »Christine_72 wrote: »Yep! I asked one of them how they did it, and they replied "walks around the neighborhood in the morning and evening ". I felt like asking if they lived in the middle of Africa lol
On my last marahon I did 51k steps, my last Ultra was 74k steps.
There is no way people are sustaining that kind of mileage unless they're training for something.
Or they're hiking.
So not onwalks around the neighbourhood
Whilst i wouldn't disagree in principle I wouldn't imagine there are many, and they're unlikely to be frequenting the FitBit forums getting worked up about winning challenges.
Often when I'm in a challenge and the weather allows I go to Big Basin and hike all day on my days off just so I can bump up my numbers and win.2 -
Tacklewasher wrote: »
When I log into my MFP app it says 7,000 up at the top. Plus if I reach 7K it tells me I met my step goals for the day.
iPhone or Android? I'm on Android and it shows 10,000. Not sure it tells me if I exceed that.0 -
Tacklewasher wrote: »Tacklewasher wrote: »
When I log into my MFP app it says 7,000 up at the top. Plus if I reach 7K it tells me I met my step goals for the day.
iPhone or Android? I'm on Android and it shows 10,000. Not sure it tells me if I exceed that.
On the iPhone app. It's also connected to my Health settings on the iPhone as that's what I use for my step tracker.0 -
Tacklewasher wrote: »Tacklewasher wrote: »
When I log into my MFP app it says 7,000 up at the top. Plus if I reach 7K it tells me I met my step goals for the day.
iPhone or Android? I'm on Android and it shows 10,000. Not sure it tells me if I exceed that.
I figured it out. I have it set to 7,000 as my daily step goal. In the app under 'more' then 'steps' and it's set to track from my iPhone and my iPhone Daily Step goal is set to 7,000.0 -
Ahh. So it's because it is linked to you iPhone app. My setup doesn't work that way is all. Was hoping it was some setting I was missing, but oh well.1
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MeanderingMammal wrote: »NorthCascades wrote: »MeanderingMammal wrote: »Christine_72 wrote: »Yep! I asked one of them how they did it, and they replied "walks around the neighborhood in the morning and evening ". I felt like asking if they lived in the middle of Africa lol
On my last marahon I did 51k steps, my last Ultra was 74k steps.
There is no way people are sustaining that kind of mileage unless they're training for something.
Or they're hiking.
So not onwalks around the neighbourhood
Whilst i wouldn't disagree in principle I wouldn't imagine there are many, and they're unlikely to be frequenting the FitBit forums getting worked up about winning challenges.
Often when I'm in a challenge and the weather allows I go to Big Basin and hike all day on my days off just so I can bump up my numbers and win.
/*hijack
San Francisco Bay Area? Me too - Big Basin is my favorite place to hike!
end hijack*/2
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